In Exchange
by LaraClover
Summary: A vending machine at Vash Zwingli's new high school catches his attention. The almost invisible boy who hangs around this machine, at first, does not. But when classmate Herakles Karpusi's cats disappear, Vash decides to team up with this Matthew guy to find out what happened. This is the start of an unusual friendship between two high school boys and a vending machine.
1. Observations

The first thing Vash saw when he entered his new high school was a distasteful abstract painting that stood out between all the school-related portraits and photographs, the big wooden doors, arched windows, and the long, old-fashioned carpet on the floor. It appeared that someone had hung up this attempt at art to conceal a piece of writing - vandalism - on the wall, but the painting was hung too far to the right and the beginning of the sentence was still visible: " _I AM A_ ". A human being? A friend of nature? A master fighter? A bastard child? No one would ever know.

"Don't worry," his sister had said with a smile when she had turned to the left, heading towards the junior high school building. "I will be happy."

She probably would be. They hadn't been separated in years, but he knew that she could cope with this. He knew that she could take care of herself when it was really necessary, and could even find happiness. After all, she was pretty good with social interactions. True, she didn't talk much, but when she did, she always managed to befriend people. Vash on the other hand... He didn't need such a thing as friendship. He would just sit in the middle of the classroom and listen to the teacher. Perhaps count his pocket money if the subject being explained was already well known to him.

So there he sat, moments later. As he could have guessed, a large part of his class consisted of idiots. Behind him, someone was talking about pasta. To the right, someone was talking about manga to an older-looking student (must have stayed back) who appeared to be asleep. In the back corner, he could vaguely distinguish some sort of discussion about whether or not it was physically possible for vampires to be fat. Another student somewhere in the classroom was speaking so loudly that it was unclear where the noise originated, and thus Vash could not detect the exact location of the speaker. He looked to the left, but quickly looked away again. Just what he needed: Roderich Edelstein was in this class.

A group of three girls and a boy came into the classroom just in time for the bell. The girls were engaged in a vivid conversation that seemed to contain "juicy gossip". The boy - unusually tall, yet not the tallest in the class, as he had seen an even taller guy walk towards the back - sat down in front of him, followed immediately by one of the girls, who sat down by his side. She had dark blonde shoulder-length hair, green eyes and a hairband, and Vash frowned when he recognized her as Emma.

He didn't usually bother to form an opinion on many topics, including people, who often seemed all the same to him. All of them annoyed him; all of them had flaws; all made mistakes. When he witnessed a fight, he would simply ignore it, or at the most, help the loser bandage up when it was over. He never picked a side; never told a tale. He minded his own business and hoped other people would do the same. He didn't want to be a part of their useless games, and he thought he gave off that sign especially well. Most people seemed to understand the message.

Emma, on the other hand, did not. She invited him to every party, every movie night, every project he was not interested in; and then the next day, would reprimand him for never showing up. She must know, thought Vash, that he did not care for such activities. And so her invitations must either be a sign that she was purposefully annoying him, or else that she was under some strange belief that every person could and should befriend every other person, without exceptions.

She seemed to be a schemer: always acting as if she were shy, modest and obedient, yet behind, yet behind this mask he knew there must be a much bossier and more selfish personality, for she always seemed to get her way and her many friends - if friends they truly were - seemed to bow down before her popularity and concealed leadership. Vash, on the contrary, had never felt the need to give in to Emma's wishes. It didn't matter how much she prodded him: he did not, and never would, want to join her ever-growing clique of superficial friendships.

He wasn't sure whether he disliked her for this constant prodding, or for her false personality, or whether it was simply because she claimed that she made better chocolate than he could, and that her brother made better cheese. (He never knew, when she said this, whether she was referring to the brother with the scar on his forehead, who was sitting next to her, or to her half-brother Francis, who was one of the professors, but he was of the opinion that neither of their cheeses could compete with his own, and since he did not have an opinion about many things, he trusted that the ones he did have must be correct.)

"... and I've heard rumors of people disappearing in the school! I mean, like, what if the school was, like, haunted? That would be totally cool!"

With these words, one of the other two girls plopped down in front of Emma and her brother, swinging back and forth on her chair and leaning back over her shoulder towards the two siblings. The remaining girl, a tall brunette, was still standing, looking around with a worried expression, as if she couldn't decide where to sit. Now that Vash was able to see her a bit better after the others had sat down, he realized that it was, in fact, another boy: he just had longish hair, longer than Vash's own. The hyper girl in front of Emma was wildly signaling for him to sit with her, but a voice sounded from the very back of the class.

"Toris, why don't you sit with me, da?" It was the tall guy he had noticed before, taller than Emma's brother. His face looked friendly and he had a sunflower pinned to his uniform, but his voice sounded slightly threatening. Toris quickly ran to sit with this bigger guy, much to Emma and the other girl's dismay.

"Toris, that's so mean! Like totally unfa- WAAAAH!"

"Feliks, be careful!" She had fallen off her chair.

Feliks, thought Vash. Apparently, she was a boy as well, which made Emma the only girl in that clique of four. This surprised him a little - he would have expected someone like her to hang out with other girls, but then again, there were hardly any girls in the class, so statistically it made a lot more sense for her friends to be male.

When Feliks had gotten back onto his seat, rubbing his behind, Emma continued the conversation they were having when they came in.

"Anyway, it's not haunted, Feliks. One student disappeared last year - only one - and I don't believe the school would have anything to do with it..."

"He probably ran away," her brother added. It was the first time he had said anything.

"Aww, but that would be so boring!" Feliks seemed like he would never calm down. "What if he died and his soul is like haunting the school?! Or what if he was kidnapped!"

"He probably ran away," Emma's brother repeated. "He was in senior year. He was not weak. He wouldn't get himself kidnapped."

Feliks pouted. "So if there's no ghosts, what is there to see at this school? Like, are there ponies?"

"In the school gardens, there is a meadow, sometimes with cows or ponies." Feliks rejoiced at hearing Emma's information. "There are also lovely trees, and the cafeteria has some delicious goodies, though it could always be better..."

"What else?!" It appeared that Feliks, like him, must be new in this class, but unlike himself, he was bustling with excitement, unable to contain himself.

"Well," Emma continued, "there are flowers, and little shops, and there's a music room where you can play... Oh, and I wouldn't recommend it, but in the hallway there's a vending- "

"EVERYBODY SHUT UP!" boomed a voice close behind him.

"Thank you, Ludwig," said the teacher. "Now class can begin."


	2. The Machine

Besides chocolate, cheese, bookkeeping, his sister, and shooting practice, Vash also found going for walks a pleasant way to pass his time. And since most of those other things were hard to come by in this boarding school, he decided to walk back and forth across the school grounds.

Although he much liked being outside, he soon grew bored with the school gardens. The flowers, the trees, the meadow and everything else related to the actual garden were all quite to his liking, but it irked him to see empty cans, cigarettes and other garbage (who on Earth had taken vodka to school, he thought to himself as he saw an empty bottle) scattered amongst the grass and flowers, and the flocks of chitchatting people were just as bad, crowding together as if it were a beach for tourists. Was this supposed to be a relaxing garden? The worst part was when he saw people picnicking in the meadows and was reminded of how often he went for a picnic with his sister. How very different it was here from the meadows at home: where were those sounds of the wind or of bird-chirping; where were those smells in the air of fir trees, cows, and chamomile flowers; where was the peace and privacy he so cherished? Even the animals weren't able to rest: Feliks was attempting to catch a pony and ride on its back.

So seeing as the weather was so good, Vash decided to continue his walk _inside_ the school, where there would certainly be fewer people. On his way in, he noticed Emma pass by, this time accompanied by other friends than he had seen her with in class (he recognized one of them as the French teacher: his neighbor, her half-brother Francis). She was wearing a boa all of a sudden and looking a lot more flirty and outgoing than her usual mask of modesty: more proof that she was indeed a schemer. The group headed straight towards the cafeteria and Vash reminded himself not to pass by there during his walk.

He marched across the hallway. At least it was _slightly_ calmer here, and there were certainly less people... He walked past a guy standing at some sort of machine, and he gave the guy no thought, walking right past him and barely noticing him at all. He walked up the steps and past numerous classrooms, then back down again. The same guy was still there.

Vash didn't notice the guy as much as he noticed the machine. The first time he had passed by here, he had assumed it was just an ordinary vending machine, but now he realized that the hallway was a pretty strange place for a vending machine (shouldn't those be in the cafeteria?) and that if it really was the same guy who was still standing there (he couldn't know for certain, since he hadn't been paying much attention), then it was taking him awfully long to get whatever he was buying. He took a closer look.

" _EXCHANGE MACHINE_ ", read the label at the top. Underneath, in smaller letters, it read " _Kirkland company_ ". It was large and shaped like a big cube (or almost a cube: it was slightly taller than it was wide), and would have looked more like a box than a machine, except that it was made of metal, not cardboard. There were no buttons, and no pictures or other indication of what you could get from it, just two large square doors, like cat doors: one at the top, the other at the bottom of the metal box.

"Eh..." a soft voice whispered. In examining the machine, Vash had almost forgotten the guy standing there. "You're... Vash, right?"

"Yes," said Vash, wondering how the kid knew that: he didn't remember having seen him before.

"I'm M..." His voice was so soft that Vash had to concentrate to be able to hear at least part of what he was saying, and even so, he hadn't been able to catch the rest of his name. "Do you wa... how the machine works?"

It was pretty clear what M... was trying to say, but Vash repeated the question in his answer just in case his assumption was wrong.

"Yes, I would like you to show me how it works."

M... took something out of his backpack. It was an eraser. He pushed open the top door and put the eraser inside. It disappeared out of sight. With a click, the bottom door opened to show a crumpled piece of paper. M... unraveled it carefully to reveal an ink drawing of a slim female figure, naked, with unusually large eyes.

"So... you insert your belongings and receive pornography?" Vash did not understand the fun of that.

But M... shook his head. "You insert anything, and receive anything... One man's trash is another man's treasure." For once, Vash could actually understand what he was saying.

"What if you get something you don't like?" he asked.

"You trade it again for something new, I guess..."

Vash looked again at the picture. It was just a drawing. It wasn't worth trading for a useful object.

"Don't you want your eraser back?" he asked M...

"I don't like erasers... I can make things vanish without them anyway... so I don't need an object like that to rub it in..." He couldn't tell whether or not M...'s pun was intended. He looked very serious.

Vash turned his head back to the machine, but he noticed nothing new on examining it again. When he turned back towards where M… had been, the boy was gone.

He stood still pondering for a moment, looking back and forth between the machine and the place where the boy had been standing, and then finally looking only at the machine.

 _Shall I try it?_ he thought. It seemed like a waste of money, since he couldn't even know beforehand what he would be getting. But then again, what if he inserted items he _knew_ he wouldn't have any use for? In that case, he could only benefit from it. And if he didn't like what he got, he could trade it back just as long until he received something of interest. _Very_ beneficent, now that he thought about it.

He opened his bag and went in search of unwanted items. A tissue perhaps? But he could reuse it... A dirty tissue: one that couldn't be reused? He found one and put it into the machine, but out came nothing but a dead fly. Frowning, he put the dead fly back into the machine and received an apple peel. He sighed in irritation: this machine was worthless! Also, he didn't like people who peeled their apples before eating them; people like Roderich Edelstein, his former best friend. He put the apple peel back in the machine and got a piece of chewed-up gum, which was quite disgusting, and when he put this back in, out came the tissue that he had inserted at the start.

Perhaps the machine had a manner of guessing values, Vash thought, and inserting garbage could only produce more garbage. He looked into his bag again and noticed a small rock he had taken along as a souvenir from home. It was a nice rock, but one of a common kind that he could easily find hundreds of in the mountains of Switzerland. He didn't need it as a souvenir either, since he did not possess memories that could only be triggered by such an object and he had other items that could fulfill the function of a souvenir if necessary, leaving the rock without a purpose.

He put the rock into the machine's door, and out came a five-cent piece. Bingo.

Just at the moment when he considered going to the garden to look for more rocks, the bell rang. Classes were starting again.


	3. Dreams

"Feliks, do you see that guy?"

"What guy? There are like a million guys in this class!"

"Herakles Karpusi. He's the one sleeping with his head against the window."

"Yeah, what about him? He looks totally un-fabulous!"

"Fabulous or not, he's definitely strange. They say he's been at this school for twelve years already."

"Twelve?!"

"He stays back every year. He's older than some of the teachers. I've heard he's actually really smart but always fails his tests because he writes his own philosophies and cryptic messages instead of the test answers, and then falls asleep. He dreams strange things, too."

"Totally weird! Is he psychic?"

"And Lovino's an odd one too," Emma continued. "Feliciano's brother: do you know him? He's a grouch, and I bet it'll be extra bad this year after what's happened... Have you heard about the gym teacher who got fired?"

"I'm glad that man is fired," said her brother. "He bullied me in middle school."

"So what about the others? Who's the vampire kid? And what's with that Japanese guy?"

Feliks was sitting backwards on his chair so that he could gossip with Emma. Her brother, meanwhile, had eyes only for the door. Vash tried to ignore them all and listen to Mr. Kirkland's science class.

"...which means that the North Pole is actually the south pole of the Earth!"

He had missed bits and pieces of the explanation due to the distraction of his annoying chattering classmates, but he was pretty sure he understood the principles of magnetism, although the thought of the North Pole being the south pole and vice versa was quite confusing.

Equally confusing was the name Kirkland. Upon looking at his schedule, Vash had concluded that he had three different teachers by this name. And he was certain he had seen it somewhere else as well... Ah yes, on the machine...

So was there a connection between these teachers and the machine? He could definitely imagine this red-haired Mr. Kirkland as an inventor and scientist, yelling "It's alive!" in his thrilled Scottish accent after the creation of this thing, the Exchange Machine.

It was a brilliant invention indeed: any student could dispose of whatever they did not need, and have a chance of getting something better in return. Rich and poor alike could become richer by using it well...

He scribbled down calculations in his notebook. If he got five cents a piece for each rock, he would need twenty to earn one euro, and two thousand to earn a hundred. It couldn't be that hard to collect two thousand rocks: he could ask Lili to send some from Switzerland, and he could collect more of them in the school gardens... And when he had earned a hundred euros, how much would that make in Swiss crowns?

"Vash Zwingli, are you listening?"

"Yes, sir." Vash quickly brought his attention back to the teacher. He couldn't believe he had just been daydreaming about a machine, but at least it was better than daydreaming about a person.

"And you, Feliks, you seem to fancy a trip to detention! I didn't come here to see your wee little back!"

"Oopsie!" Feliks exclaimed, after which he started giggling.

"And Herakles: asleep again, are you?"

The sleeping student by the window stirred slightly, and his messy brown hair fell in front of his face.

"Won't you be so kind, Herakles, to tell us about the work of a magnetic field?"

"Magnetic... field..." muttered Herakles. "Attraction... poles and powers... family... money... cravings..."

"Family and cravings?" the teacher asked skeptically. "In a magnetic field?"

"...Cravings for power..." Herakles continued. "Selfish reasons, and perhaps jealousy... Three... Three girls, two brothers... a plan, a turn of events... protection... Loss, enclosure, betrayal... Sacrifice, the one for the other..."

"Yes, yes, we get it!" said the teacher, clearly impatient to get back to his actual teaching.

"...Three girls, two brothers..." Herakles mumbled again, but then instead of saying something more, he started snoring.

"He's been doing that since God knows when." He hoped the Mr. Kirkland they had for English class would not sound as Scottish as this one, since that would make him a lot more difficult to comprehend. But then again, it didn't matter so much, since Vash was good at languages.

"Does someone else know the answer?"

Vash didn't feel like listening to his classmates involve all kinds of irrelevant things in their answers. This was only his third class at his new school and yet he already knew that Feliciano would answer "Pastaaaa!", that Vladimir would include vampires in his reply, and that Alfred would give some sort of speech about being a hero. So instead of having to listen to all these nonsensical things, he deliberately stopped listening and imagined what he would do with all the money he would earn from using the machine.

He imagined himself standing in a bank safe, surrounded by gold. An entire world made out of chocolate. The look on his sister's face as he would offer her the most beautiful gifts.

He thought also of how lucky he was to live in such a beautiful place as Switzerland, with castles and mountains and grassy meadows, but all his thoughts were interrupted by:

"Alas, no pets in class!"

"But look at the cute kitty!" Vash looked over at the cat Herakles was holding. It was a stray cat, whose fur was very uneven, whose ears had missing pieces and who was twitching as if he had fleas. Apparently, the Japanese boy sitting next to Herakles did indeed consider this cat to be just as cute as Herakles claimed it was, seeing as he was practically jumping up and down in his chair.

"Dude, you just shut the hell up!" The very loud guy named Alfred seemed angry all of a sudden. "You think you're funny? You think you're funny with your stupid cats?"

"This is one of my favorites," said Herakles. "I named him Snatcher. He used to catch birds when he was young."

"Ludwig, what's the matter? Don't you think it's a cute kitty?" The muscular guy named Ludwig was glaring at Herakles: he and Alfred were probably very annoyed by the presence of this unappealing dirty cat. Ludwig's friend Feliciano, however, seemed to adore that beast almost as much as Herakles and the Japanese boy did. Vash really didn't understand people's taste sometimes.

Herakles, meanwhile, ignored Ludwig and Alfred as well as the teacher, and instead started talking to the cat.

"Don't listen to the boys get all affected. The boys are silly. How can they not love such a sweet cat? How can they call you stupid? I bet you're a very smart kitty, Snatcher."

Just when Mr. Kirkland had managed to continue his explanation and cease all talking about cats, there was a second interruption. A girl with a bow in her long hair, presumably a first-year, had slowly pushed open the door.

"What do you want?" the teacher asked, putting a hand to his head. "This isn't your class."

"I was lonely," the girl answered.

Seeing this girl in the doorway made Vash suddenly realize how few girls there actually were in this class. He already knew there were not many, but only now did he realize that there were, in fact, only two. One was Emma. The other was Elisaveta, Roderich's girlfriend. Gazing out the window, Herakles stated:

"We all get lonely sometimes..."


	4. Friendship

Music class. Of course. That was _just_ what he needed. A completely useless subject where he would waste a whole hour that he could have devoted to shooting practice, or to a walk in the nice fresh air, or to collecting rocks for the Exchange Machine.

If at least it had been another _useful_ class, he could have listened to the teacher, and if it had been a useless class in an ordinary classroom, he could have written a letter to Lili. But this was _music_ class: there were no desks and one couldn't write unnoticed.

The worst of all, however, was that it was _Roderich's_ most beloved subject, the one he was the most talented at, and Vash already knew that the Austrian boy would spend the entire hour showing off. That boy already had his eyes glued to the piano and Mr. Kirkland - another one - wasn't even here yet!

Roderich had been his best friend in kindergarten, but their friendship had been ruined by his sickeningly dependent personality. He was weak and spoiled. Whenever he got beaten up, he ran to Vash for help. It was always Vash who had to take care of him, who had to protect him, who had to bandage him up. He had tried to teach Roderich to fight; it never helped. The boy had stayed weak and needy, following Vash around like a puppy dog and asking him for favors. And what had he gotten in return? "Friendship". In other words: nothing at all. That is why it had to stop. He had had to put an end to their friendship, for both of their sakes. But Roderich hadn't even learned from it: he had simply found a new person to cling to instead, the Hungarian girl Elisaveta.

Vash, however, had learned. He had learned never to make friends that would only take advantage of him. He had vowed never to care about another stupid person. Friendships caused more inconveniences than advantages, the worst of all being that awful dependence, which made people needy and annoying and their relationships one-sided.

There had been one person only for whom he had made an exception. Lili was different from the others. Lili was dependent on him sometimes, but she was not ungrateful like Roderich had been. She valued everything he did for her and showed her appreciation. She paid attention to Vash's training and understood now how to defend herself when it was really necessary. She did not assume he would do her favors, and each time he did, she would face it ever again with happy surprise. And sometimes she even did things for him in return, such as the gift she had made for him to wear: a pair of pink pajamas. Why would he seek untrustworthy friends when he had her, his sister, who was worth so much more?

"HE-EEY!" Vash frowned at Feliks's annoying singsong voice. He looked to see what the boy was screaming about: the teacher had finally arrived.

"A very good morning to you, sir," said Roderich: of course, it was only natural for someone like him to suck up to the _music_ teacher.

Mr. Kirkland number two. Just like the one in science class, he had red hair and unusually thick eyebrows. His hair was a lighter, more natural-looking red than that of the previous teacher, and his face was dappled with more freckles than the other possessed. His eyes were bright green.

"Now let us find out how well all ye folks can sing!" Roderich looked visibly disappointed: Vash could see how his hands itched for the piano.

"Are we gonna sing _Friendship is Magic_?"

"No," the teacher replied to Feliks.

Somehow, Vash vaguely remembered Feliks being part of the group that kept beating up Roderich when they were little, along with some other blonde kid, and a guy with white hair, but he might have been mixing things up, since Feliks didn't seem like the type to engage in physical bullying. It could also have been that vampire guy - Vladimir - and his friend Milen, but there had been at least five bullies, so maybe all five of them had done it at some point... The only one he remembered for certain was that white-haired guy, who probably didn't go to school here, since Vash hadn't seen him around.

By now, Mr. Kirkland was forcing everyone to sing something. When it was Vash's turn, he sang the Swiss national anthem, since he didn't know much else to sing.

"Your singing's too monotonous!" the teacher commented. Vash shrugged; wasn't that exactly the way he _wanted_ it to be? He knew of a way he could sing that was _not_ monotonous, and he had no plans for the near future to demonstrate it.

"That's slightly off-key, Feliciano, but not too bad, nice and passionate," Kirkland commented, walking past all the students one by one to critique their voices.

"More confidence, Toris! Nice bass, Milen! Tim-Govert, add some feeling to the song! No, no, that's off-key, Feliks... ALFRED! DEAR LORD! You sing louder and flatter than your father on gin!"

Vash cringed. He couldn't care less if people sang out of key _softly_ , but this was a pain to his ears!

"Sounds alright, Roderich..." Again, Roderich was visibly disappointed. He had probably hoped he would be the best.

"Very good, Ivan, very passionate!" Roderich looked jealous. "Very goo - OH!" The teacher's smile shifted to a horrified expression when Ivan started whimpering. "Er, Ivan, don't squeak like that; I much preferred your previous way of - "

"Big brother..." The self-proclaimed lonely girl was back, walking straight at Ivan, chanting in a dark whisper:

"Marry me! Marry me! Marry me!"

"Go away!" Ivan whimpered. "Make her go away!"

"Um... Natalia... I don't think your brother wants..."

"Silence!" Natalia said angrily. Toris bowed his head.

"If you're lonely, I..."

" _Silence_!" Natalia said again, turning briefly towards Toris and then back to Ivan, who apparently was her brother.

"I can deal with this," said Elisaveta. "Nat, out! This class is for juniors only."

"I... don't... care!" Natalia struggled as Roderich's girlfriend tried to push her towards the door.

"Do I need to smack you with a pan?" Elisaveta added, but Ivan's sister kept struggling and attempting to scratch the older girl. Elisaveta's attempts to push her towards the door were failing: although she was strong, Natalia was even stronger.

"Excuse me, may I?" Emma walked a step closer and waved at Natalia. "Nat!"

Both girls stopped fighting and waited to see what the third one had to say.

"It's nice to see you, Nat," said Emma. Always that feigned modesty, Vash thought to himself. That girl really thought she could do everything with her gilded words, and Natalia seemed to fall for them as much as most other people did: she seemed calmer, more patient.

"It's nice," Emma repeated, "but wouldn't it be much nicer if you got married outside of school hours? It'd be much more romantic..."

Natalia stood still, staring at Emma for a moment, and then nodded softly. "Yes... more romantic..." Then she turned around and left. Another example of Emma's manipulative skills.

"Thank you, Emma," said the teacher, finishing his last critiques now. "Your turn, lassie! Sounds good: can you go higher? We're short of girls, so it'd be great if... Whoa there, Emma, not _too_ high! You don't want to sound like a screeching parakeet, do you? I've heard enough of that squeaking when Peter sings at home! Well, we've had everyone then, haven't we?"

It was quiet for a moment, then everyone started nodding and mumbling "yes". The sleepy guy with the cat had had his turn, and so had Elisaveta, Vladimir, Milen, the Japanese boy...

"You forgot Mattie!" Alfred suddenly yelled.

"Who?" asked several students. Some of them started looking around the classroom, others looked at Alfred for an explanation. Roderich, perplexed, stated: "Who in the world is Mattie?"

"Mattie... Mattie..." The teacher thought for a minute, then jumped up. "Oh, right: Matthew, of course!" He looked around the room, and finally approached a quiet kid in the corner who Vash hadn't noticed before.

" _Much_ too soft, Matthew: I can barely hear your singing! Can't you go any louder?"

Vash took another look at the kid and was struck by surprise. That was the same guy he had met at the machine! How had he never noticed before that that boy was in his class? Now he understood how he'd known Vash's name, since all three new students (Toris, Feliks and himself) had been introduced to the others during their first class. And now that he could properly hear the boy's name, he should make sure to remember it: _Matthew_. Matthew looked quite a bit like Alfred, Vash noticed, but it would be easy for him to tell the two apart since their behavior was so different. He nodded at Matthew to show him that he remembered who he was. Matthew smiled.


	5. Rocks

When the bell rang, Vash went straight to the Machine, but then he remembered that he still had to collect rocks. He was going to turn back and walk towards the door, when he saw both Matthew and Roderich head in that direction. For a moment he was puzzled: what would an old-fashioned person like Roderich want with a machine? But then he realized that anyone as spoiled as he was would want to profit from such a thing.

"Roderich, what are you doing _there_?!" Vash smirked at Elisaveta's horrified voice: apparently, she had not yet realized how spoiled her boyfriend was.

"Oh... nothing." And apparently, Roderich was hiding it from her. Well, that was their problem.

The garden was filled with noisy students, but there weren't quite as many as there had been during the previous break. Vash figured it was because a lot more of them went to the cafeteria during lunchtime than during the 10 AM and 2.50 PM breaks.

He ignored Alfred's screaming coming from one side and Feliks's squeals of delight from the side with the ponies. He ignored the art and history teacher trying to make a first year call him "big brother", and also several other teachers chasing each other. He ignored one of the Vargas brothers yelling "Ludwig! Ludwig, where are you?" and the other one sitting on the front step pouting. He looked only at the ground, picking up rocks as he went, until he heard a familiar voice:

"Big brother!"

He looked up at his sister in surprise, while he heard a teacher's voice in the background say: "Follow her example, Emil". His eyes smiled upon seeing her dear face again, then he switched to a more questioning look as he noticed a few other middle school students around her. Lili, noticing this, added with a sweet, modest smile: "These are my new friends! Lucille, Raivis, and Cheng." She turned to them and added: "This is Vash, who I told you so much about."

Lucille, a girl with a loose braid and glasses, gave him an approving look, but he wasn't sure what exactly she was approving of. Cheng, an Asian boy, also with glasses, seemed to be examining him from head to toe in a colder manner, but he doubted this was a sign of actual dislike: it looked more like the way he himself often looked at people, a manner he liked to consider neutral. Raivis seemed more likely to dislike him, since he looked afraid for some reason. He was the shortest of the group: unusually small, even for a middle schooler.

He nodded at the three of them and hoped they were suitable friends for his sister. Perhaps he would search for information about them later to make sure.

"So did you make any friends, Vash?"

"No," he answered. "I do not see the need for that sort of thing."

Lili smiled. "I think a lot of people do not have a _need_ for friends. And yet, once they find some, it can make their life more interesting. It can be relieving to have someone to rely on, even if you can easily take care of yourself."

"Hm..." Vash didn't agree: friendship had a lot more drawbacks than advantages, so he could not see how it could be found "relieving". However, he did not wish to upset his sister with such pessimism, nor did he much like to express his opinions outwardly: he preferred to retain a neutral attitude. "Perhaps that could be so."

"We middle schoolers shall soon find out the consequences," answered Cheng. Was he mocking Vash's attitude? Did he have similar doubts about the notion of friendship? Was he simply curious to find out? Or was he just being playful with his words? Vash found the boy quite hard to read.

"It must be awfully peaceful to have _you_ as a brother!" Lucille announced. She was not as hard to read as Cheng and yet he didn't quite understand this statement: was it meant as an insult or as a compliment?

He shrugged his shoulders, gave his sister a warm goodbye (as far as he managed to be warm) and continued collecting rocks.

When he had gotten together a whole bunch of them, he went back to the machine and was surprised to find Ludwig standing there, staring at him in horror as if he had been caught doing something terrible... or perhaps he was just horrified to see Vash carrying dirty rocks: he had heard his neighbors, the Vargas brothers, speak of Ludwig several times, and he was quite certain one of them had once mentioned him being very neat and orderly. Knowing Roderich, he knew how extreme such an obsession could become. And yet it was sort of strange to see both Roderich and Ludwig act in such a manner in the same place, at the same machine, on the same day.

Ludwig marched off without saying a word and Vash walked straight to the machine. He inserted a rock and received something black that looked like another rock. He examined it briefly - it was as hard as a rock, but not as cold, and it smelled old and burnt, probably charcoal or something of the sort - and then put it back in the machine, hoping to get something better this time. Out came a crumpled piece of paper: when he unraveled it, it revealed a very poor quality drawing of a person's face. He put this back too and received a stick, which he put back and got his own rock back again. He sighed: trading with the machine was going to be harder than he had imagined. But when he put his rock back again, he received a shoelace and nodded in approval. Although he would rather have money, he was always in need of more shoelaces.

He put another rock into the machine, a larger and nicer one this time, and he got five euros: a pleasant surprise! He wondered who had been so stupid to put a five-euro note in the machine in the first place.

He inserted a third rock and received a newspaper from a year ago. A fourth rock gave him Matthew's eraser: he could use that when his own was used up. A fifth rock brought him a large, empty box: that must definitely be useful for something...

"...and so now you know the whole story of why we have a new gym teacher this year! It truly is a shame: he was so handsome..." It was Emma's voice, followed by Feliks's pitter pattering feet, followed by Alfred screaming at someone:

"Well you can't tell me anything because you're FAT!"

"We shall see in changing room who is fat, da?"

Changing room? Vash turned around and saw a whole group of kids from his class all heading in the same direction. He looked at his schedule: gym class. And since it was starting soon, he followed the others so that he would get there on time. He would save the rocks for some other moment.


	6. Cats

The gym teacher had an axe for some reason.

"What happened to Antonio?" asked Lovino Vargas.

"I think you know that better than I do!" the teacher laughed. "Now get your butts changed already!"

"I liked the previous teacher better," Roderich stated immediately upon entering the changing room. "This new one is rude."

"Hey, is it true what Emma just told us about how he got fired?"

"Feliks, why don't we hush up about that?" This was Toris talking. "It is disrespectful to gossip about people in such a way... We know nothing about their situation..."

"Damn right you know nothing, you stupid bastards!" Lovino turned bright red when everyone looked at him, but they were soon distracted by Alfred, who, as usual, was screaming.

"THAT IS NOT TRUE!"

"Da, is! Compared to our height, you are just as fat as I am."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Ludwig shouted. "Neither of you is fat!"

"You know, we should like totally find out who is fattest in the class and stick a pig nose on his face!"

"Feliks, don't say things like that!"

Vash grunted. What did it matter who was "fat"? No one in their class was even "fat", and the person who came closest to it was not, as everyone seemed to assume, either Alfred or Ivan.

"Actually, the fattest person in this class is my sister, though even she is not that fat. Ivan and Alfred may be ugly in some ways, but they are not actually overweight." Vash nodded in agreement: Tim-Govert had said exactly what was on his mind.

"I'm not ugly!" And of course, Alfred was offended. This class was becoming so predictable.

"Everyone is ugly in one way or another," Tim-Govert answered.

"Who says fat is a form of ugly?" Kiku stated. "I once saw a kitty that was very fat, and he was so kawaï!"

"I once saw a kitty that was painted pink!" said Feliks.

"I once saw a kitty that was cute!" said Feliciano.

Predictable or not, Vash thought, his classmates were certainly very talented in brabbling on about unimportant matters. He thought a discussion of who was "fat" was useless enough, but who was _ugly_ was even worse, as it was only a matter of opinion, and the most useless of all was this new discussion they were having about all the different kinds of cats they had seen in their lifetime.

"Speaking of cats, where is Herakles?" Matthew suddenly asked. No one seemed to hear him, so Vash repeated his question:

"Speaking of cats, where is Herakles?"

Everyone looked at Vash now with puzzled faces.

"That is strange..." mumbled Kiku. "Where _is_ Herakles?"

"Maybe he's skipping class," said Vladimir. "I mean, it's _Herakles_. And it's _gym_ class." Milen and several others nodded in agreement.

"I don't know, though," said Kiku, frowning. "I sense some sort of disturbance in the air. And it may not be limited to Herakles alone: I have the feeling there is someone else missing."

Ludwig's expression tensed, and Alfred frowned as well, though he then said cheerily: "Don't worry 'bout it! It's pro'lly just Matt: no-one ever notices the kid!"

That didn't make sense to Vash, though. If Kiku didn't notice Matthew, why would he notice his absence? Besides, it did seem as if there was another person less than there was supposed to be... He looked around the room. Perhaps it was just the absence of the two girls who were in the other changing room, Emma and Elisaveta, or perhaps...

And thinking about Elisaveta made him realize who else was not there: Roderich Edelstein. Vash frowned: hadn't he been here just a moment ago, stating that the new teacher was rude? Or had that been in an earlier class? Either way, it didn't make sense for Roderich to skip out: maybe Herakles could be the type for that sort of thing, but Roderich was most certainly not.

"I'M LIKE TOTALLY GONNA WET MYSELF!"

"Is the bathroom locked?" Toris asked Feliks, who was jumping up and down.

Of course. That was it. They were probably just using the bathroom. Or at least, one of them must be...

"I bet those dudes are snogging each other in there!" Alfred yelled.

Vash doubted that. Not only was he uncertain of the fact whether his former best friend had any interest in men to begin with, but even if he did, he had a girlfriend, and even if for some reason he was willing to break the rules of their monogamous relationship by kissing others behind her back, he was too neat and orderly a person to do this in a school toilet and too easily embarrassed to do this so nearby the rest of the class.

His doubt that Alfred's suspicion was correct was confirmed. Right when the gym teacher peeped his head inside the room to see if they were finished, Herakles stormed in, frantically sobbing.

Kiku stared in shock. Ivan reached his arms out, asking: "What is all this?" Even Feliciano was not grinning anymore.

"What is wrong with you?" asked Milen.

"CAAAATS!" Herakles sobbed. "How could someone do that to my CATS?!"

"What happened to your cats?" asked Toris.

"Do you want a glass of water?" asked Tim-Govert.

The teacher, who had just come in, was laughing hysterically, probably at the fact that Herakles was making such a big deal out of cats.

"He KIDNAPPED them!" Herakles wailed, clearly ignoring both Tim-Govert and the teacher.

"Who?" asked Kiku.

"Mister Wang!" yelled Herakles. "Or someone else mean! Alfred did it! Or Sadik!"

"Calm down," said Kiku. "Don't go yelling out false accusations. Why do you accuse my friends and relatives?"

"Mister Wang eats cats, and Sadik is mean, and Alfred screamed at me in class."

"Alfred screams all of the time, just like Ludwig-san. It is their natural behavior. I do not agree that Sadik is mean: he is a very friendly person. I don't understand why you get along so badly. And my brother Yao the math teacher might occasionally eat cats, but he would never take someone else's pets for such a reason. There must be a different explanation."

Some of the students had lost interest in the conversation and Vash heard very loud laughter (unmistakably Alfred's) coming from the corner of more popular guys: Feliks had peed in his pants due to the bathroom being locked for so long. At that same moment, the bathroom door opened and Roderich came out in his gym clothes, blushing.

"Are y'all ready now, slowpokes?!" yelled the teacher. Everyone was ready except for Feliks and Herakles, who stayed in the changing room to finish up, while the rest headed towards the gym.


	7. A Mystery

Vash took gym class rather seriously. Ludwig did so even more strongly: even though he was one of the very best in the class, he pushed himself so hard already during the warming-up that his face looked pained, exhausted, and almost sinister.

"He wants to steal my job!" laughed the teacher, who was clearly a lot less serious.

He then taught them how to use axes and swords, and after that how to play football. Vash preferred the first half of the class: he was interested in weapons. Sword fighting was interesting and he hadn't done it in a long time, since he'd been using guns and other more efficient machines. Axes he was quite familiar with for woodcutting, but it was interesting to know how to use them to defend oneself.

The second half of the class, however, annoyed him. He didn't like soccer, because he didn't like working in a team. Since no one ever passed him the ball, his mind started to wander to other places. He contemplated the gym room, which was refreshingly airy, though the rubbery smell reminded him of how he would much rather have gym classes outdoors. He didn't understand why this was not the case: it was a warm September day, after all. Even if it had been winter, outside gym classes would be nice: he didn't mind the cold and was quite fond of winter sports.

He then started thinking about Roderich (what had he been doing for so long in the bathroom?), and then about what had just happened to Herakles, which struck him as very odd. What person in his right mind would steal stray cats? What motive could there possibly be for such a crime? Those cats were worth nothing, nor were they something one couldn't easily get for free elsewhere, without stealing. Unless someone with an even crazier and more desperate cat obsession than Herakles had done it, the only possibility was that it was a direct attack aimed at Herakles himself, with his cats only being a means of hurting him.

"What are you thinking about?"

Vash turned around abruptly. "Matthew, what the hell? Shouldn't you be playing?"

Matthew shrugged. "I don't like soccer: no one ever passes to me. I like ice hockey, though."

Vash nodded. "I guess we both prefer winter sports."

They were quiet for a moment, then Mr. Køler yelled:

"HEY! Back to the game, Vash!" He said nothing about Matthew, who laughed.

"It usually sucks to be an unnoticed wallflower, but in times like these it's like a magic power. Ever read _Morris's disappearing bag_ by Rosemary Wells?"

"No," said Vash, pretending to be fully concentrated on the game so the teacher wouldn't tell him off again.

"I was really bitter for a while, 'cause I was never noticed and stuff. And Alfred, of course, was pestering me at first, and I learned to stand up to him, and then the next time I got really sad, he gave me this book as a kind of comfort. It's a kids' book, but it's got more meaning to it than just a simple story. It shows how invisibility can be a superpower and can even help people notice you in the end. Kumajojo didn't like the book, though: he thought it was insulting." Here, Matthew laughed again at some sort of inside joke.

"Who is Kumajojo?" asked Vash.

"My teddy bear," Matthew answered. "He found the book offensive. But I thought it was a sweet gesture."

"My sister is always kind like that."

"Well, my brother's not. That's what made it so special."

That was an interesting point of view, and not one that Vash would normally have. Wasn't it better if someone was nice to you all the time?

"Can I ask you something, Matthew?"

"Sure."

"Do you know whether anyone has a strong hatred towards Herakles?"

"Herakles? Eh... I don't think so... though, maybe Sadik does: that's a guy in senior year. And I don't think Milen from our class likes him very much either... Why do you ask?"

"I was just thinking... Thank you."

After classes were over, he asked the same question to Herakles.

"Herakles, is there anyone you know who hates you?"

"Sadik!" Herakles answered immediately. "And Milen... maybe Vladimir too, since they are best friends... Oh, maybe Alfred and Ludwig, or at least it seemed so today... but they're usually nice to me..."

Vash nodded. Five suspects... But then again, what if the cats hadn't been stolen at all? He would be wasting his time!

"Are you sure your cats are stolen?" he asked. "Couldn't they just have run away?"

"All seven of them?" Herakles answered.

"What if they were hit by a car?"

"All seven?"

Herakles was right: it was strange indeed. The more he thought about it, the more interested he got in the affair. But shouldn't he stop trying to figure this out? he suddenly thought. What good was it to him? He wouldn't benefit from it in any way. Besides, why would he stick his nose into other people's business, the very thing he hated doing, and what was more, hated seeing other people do? Did he want to be a hypocrite?

Everyone else was leaving the changing room now. Roderich emerged from the toilet again and hastened out, looking at the ground. Lovino complained once more about what a stupid bastard that new gym teacher was, and Ludwig sighed, stating he would teach gym class much better. When they all walked out of the changing room, Feliks, Toris and Tim-Govert immediately met up with Emma, and they started blabbing again, apparently excited to go to some shops. While they hurried past Vash and Herakles, Emma briefly turned her head towards the latter, stating:

"You still owe me money, Herakles."

Vash stopped walking. _You still owe me money, Herakles_. Of course. He had always known she was false and manipulative. She had never respected his privacy, so neither would he. He would make sure to prove her guilty.


	8. Feeding Time

He asked a few more questions to Herakles to figure out more precisely how the situation was, and the details echoed in his mind while he headed towards the machine. Sometime during lunch break, so between 12.00 noon and 12.30 PM, Herakles Karpusi had turned around, only to find his seven cats missing. These cats normally had the habit of following him everywhere, so it was highly unlikely that all seven cats had run away. It was possible that someone had snuck up behind him at some point and taken the cats, but it was more probable that they had been stolen while he was napping or on the toilet: this way, he would have been less likely to notice if one of them let out a meow.

"Fee-ding time! Fee-ding time! Da, da, da! Fee-ding time!"

Vash frowned. What in the world was that all about? The singing came from Ivan Braginsky, the tall Russian guy with the lonely sister, and to Vash's irritation, he was standing right in front of the machine. How come there always had to be other people at the machine when he wanted to use it? Why couldn't he just trade his rocks in peace? He had other things to think about at the moment than whatever Ivan was doing, since his mind was preoccupied with the Stolen Cat Case.

Vash was certain that Emma must have done this. "Hating" someone alone was not a real motive to steal this person's pets (unless Herakles had recently done something specific that had sparked extra anger in his hater); money, on the other hand, was one of the most common motives for crime. Besides, he knew Emma pretty well, and he knew that if someone owed her money, she would always remember this and would make sure to be paid back in some way, however long it would take. This was another reason Vash didn't want to join her ever-growing group of friends: she would do her "friends" favors, and then expect them to give her things in return. That was the true nature of friendship: favors and high expectations. It was almost like slavery: friends were forced to stick up for each other, no matter how stupid the trouble was that your friend had gotten into, and forced to see each other regularly instead of being alone and at peace, and forced to gift each other when surely there were a lot of better ways to spend your money...

"Yummy yummy," said Ivan, disturbing Vash's thoughts again. He looked towards the Russian guy, and this time he noticed with a shock what he was actually doing. He was holding a bottle of something - something high school students were not allowed to have, Vash was certain - and he was pouring the contents of the bottle into the top door of the Machine!

"What do you think you are doing?!" Vash exclaimed. "You will break the machine!"

But Ivan shook his head. "That is not true. It makes him happy!"

The machine made a clicking noise, and Vash could already imagine it exploding or breaking down in some other way, but instead, the bottom door opened, giving Ivan a 100 euro bank note!

"I told you, da?" said Ivan. Vash walked away, jealous and irritated. The Machine was supposed to return something of equal value. 100 euros for some vodka was completely unfair, unless it was top quality expensive vodka (which Vash doubted Ivan would give away to the Machine like that). Besides, the whole point of the Machine was supposed to be the reuse of each other's trash! Pouring a liquid inside it that couldn't be reused was defeating the purpose!

But Ivan's stupid action was only a minor concern. Vash needed to bring his mind back to important matters. He went back to the garden to pick up some more rocks, which made him feel calmer, and then he silently analyzed the situation of Herakles and the mysterious disappearance.

Of course, he couldn't be _absolutely_ sure that Emma had stolen the cats. He couldn't base his judgment purely on Emma's personality and the fact that Herakles owed her money. To prove that this theft was a threat to push this money out of Herakles, he would need more information about Emma and her whereabouts, and just in case he was wrong, he would need to question all other mentioned suspects as well: the five people who had been named as possibly hating Herakles or being angry at him for some reason.

 _List of suspects_

 _Sadik_

 _Milen_

 _Vladimir_

 _Alfred_

 _Ludwig_

 _Emma_

He looked around the garden, and then in the hallways, to see if any of these people were in sight, but he couldn't find them, and he wasn't sure where to look. He didn't even know who Sadik was, let alone where he usually spent his school breaks. He had no clue as to where Milen and Vladimir could be at this moment. As for Emma, he was quite certain she had headed off to the nearby shops with some of her friends, and he didn't feel like going all the way there and risking coming late to their last class of the day. He could still try Ludwig or Alfred perhaps, if he could find them, but first, he wanted to trade in the rest of the rocks he had collected, since Ivan had probably left by now.

He headed towards the machine, and was relieved to see that this time, there was no one there and he could trade his rocks in peace. He received another five-cent piece (after trading back a tea bag, a sock with a hole in it and an almost-used up box of face powder), a leash (it must come in handy at some point), a piece of blank paper (always useful), and a first-year history text book (must have been a more valuable rock... and what idiot would throw away his text books?). When he had only a few more rocks left, he went through the things in his bag to see if there was something else he could do without, but he was interrupted by a voice behind him:

"What in the world do you think you're doing?!"

He turned around to face Elisaveta. What was her problem all of a sudden? He wasn't doing anything strange.

"I am making use of this useful vending machine that happens to be located in our school. Do you have a problem with that?"

Elisaveta frowned. "I'd watch out if I were you. There was a time last year when for a while, that thing did not work at all. It shut down, and right when..." She stopped and paused. She seemed distressed for some reason. She shook her head. "Anyway, it's a stupid way to spend your time. You never know what you will get, or what you will lose, or if you'll get anything at all, or when it will break down and when it will work again, or what else could happen... Believe me, I am not one of those wimpy people who get afraid easily. I am the girl who hits people with frying pans and who played soldiers with the boys when I was little. But there is something eerie about that machine. I wouldn't fool around with it too much if I were you. But that is just my advice."

"I don't need anyone's advice, thank you," Vash answered. "I think I am mature enough to decide things for myself." He hated when people told him what to do: he wasn't dependent like her boyfriend was. What was she thinking? Perhaps she was so used to having to deal with him that she had started to boss everyone else around as well.

But Elisaveta laughed. "You don't like being bossed around, huh? Then why are you friends with Alfred? Bossiest guy I've ever known; even worse than me!"

"I am not friends with anybody," Vash answered, getting even more irritated. Why would she even think such a thing? Alfred of all people: he was loud and annoying and they hadn't even done a single thing together, not even exchanged one word!

Elisaveta shrugged and walked away, leaving Vash completely puzzled. Only after thinking about it for a while did he realize that she must have mistaken Matthew for Alfred: they did look alike, after all, even though their personalities were so different... He wasn't friends with Matthew either, of course, but it was more logical for someone to think this, since they had spent some time together throughout the course of the day... So that explained at least the last bit of Elisaveta's rant...

He traded in another rock, a big one, and he immediately hit the bull's-eye: a five-euro banknote! What idiot had put all this money in here to begin with? Whoever it was, he was indirectly helping Vash, so for once, he could be pleased about other people's stupidity. One last rock before he would start questioning his suspects... He received a little blue flower and put it sticking out of his chest pocket, like he always did with the flowers his sister picked for him.

Now where were the people on his list? He needed to question them one by one, but he still didn't know where to find them. And what should he ask them? How should he put it subtly? What was the best way to ask such questions without raising any suspicions?

And that was when it dawned upon him that there was a flaw in his plans. Although he only knew most of the other students since this morning, he already had a pretty clear idea of their personalities, which meant that they might already have a clear idea of his own. And if there was one thing they could easily guess about his personality, it would be the one thing that he always made clear to the outside world: that he did not like people meddling in his affairs, and that he himself did not like meddling in theirs. In other words, if he went up to students asking them about their whereabouts and occupations during lunch break, they would immediately know he was up to something, since asking students arbitrary questions out of "curiosity" was definitely a form of meddling.

He needed someone who could do this more subtly. Someone who could engage in a friendly conversation with these people and slowly let them reveal the crucial answers in between bits of small talk. Someone no one would suspect of having any further goals than just "chatting", innocent curiosity and "friendship". This all matched up neatly with Emma's manipulative personality and her mask of sweetness, but she was his primary suspect, and besides, he didn't think that this would be the kind of assistance he was looking for. Better would be someone charismatic enough to put up the play of an ordinary conversation, and yet someone who afterwards would be easily forgotten. Someone like...


	9. Wallflower Pact

Vash found Matthew looking at some sort of board.

"Hey Vash, look, we're roo..." He didn't hear the rest of his sentence, but he had more important things on his mind.

"Matthew," Vash asked him, "would you like to make use of your superpowers?"

"Eh?" Matthew turned around and blinked. "Superpowers? What..." He stopped, and stared at him. "Vash, why are you..."

"I just thought you might be interested, after the 'disappearing bag' story and all that. But I won't pay you for it, so I understand if you don't want to help."

"You... want me to help you with something?"

"Yes. At least, it would be very useful if you did."

"Sure, I'll do whatever," said Matthew, "but that's not what..." His voice became very hard to hear at this point. "...asking why you're wearing... my favorite... but Alfred doesn't like those... sobbing every time he... I think they frighten him... make him sad... forgotten... so can you please put it somewhere else?"

Vash raised an eyebrow. "Could you please speak up so that I know _what_ to put somewhere else?"

Matthew blushed.

"If you have trouble speaking up," Vash added, "just pretend you're Alfred. It'll be good practice."

Matthew laughed, but soon his face grew serious again.

"If I were Alfred now, I'd be sobbing."

"What the hell?! Why?!" The thought of Alfred sobbing was a little startling.

Matthew cleared his throat. "You're wearing my favorite flower."

"Really?" Vash took the little blue flower from his pocket and examined it.

"They're called forget-me-nots," said Matthew. "But you should put it away... because my brother hates those flowers..."

"What?" Vash was only getting more confused. "Why would anyone hate flowers?"

"It's just this one kind," said Matthew. "I think it's 'cause of something that happened in his youth. Arthur - Mr. Kirkland, the English teacher - told me that he found him crying one day... and that he said..." Here Matthew stopped, paused, and added: "I think he's afraid. Afraid of death, and afraid to be forgotten... Maybe that's why he's so loud."

They were quiet for a moment, and then Vash handed the flower to Matthew.

"You take it then, if it's your favorite. You can put it in your dorm: then Alfred won't see it..."

Matthew's face lit up. "Speaking of dorms, I was trying to tell you..." His voice faded out again, but this time, Vash was paying attention and saw him point at a sheet of paper pinned to the board, with a list of the roommates of their class. It looked like it was done in alphabetical order: Ludwig Beilschmidt with Ivan Braginsky, Roderich Edelstein with Milen Hinov, etcetera. He looked at the very bottom of the list and saw his own name next to Matthew's. He nodded in approval.

"We can work a lot on the Stolen Cats Case, then."

Matthew looked at him questioningly, and he explained to him what he was planning to do.

"...but then I realized that I was not the kind of person who could question people unnoticed. I needed someone with your 'superpowers'."

"So you want me to get information out of these people, eh?"

"Yes. You would be the exact kind of person who could manage such a thing. You are not a member of Emma's enormous clique, so you wouldn't be biased, and most importantly, you wouldn't raise suspicion: they would either forget about you or mistake you for Alfred having a chat."

Matthew grimaced, then laughed. "Well, at least I'll be making better use of our resemblance than by getting myself beaten up by my brother's haters. I'll need to brush up on speaking louder though, otherwise they won't even notice I'm there at all."

"You're agreeing on this alliance, then?"

"Hell yeah," said Matthew. "We can call it the _Wallflower Pact_. The forget-me-not can be our mascot, or Kumajara can, if you want."

Vash nodded and they shook hands. They had a deal.

Ten minutes later, they were constructing a plan together in their notebooks. Matthew had moved to the seat next to him in French class, and since they were both fluent French speakers, they didn't need to pay attention to Mr. Bonnefoy's attempts to explain grammar and pronunciation to the others ("Non, Alfred, one does not say 'bawngewr'!"), nor to his occasional sidetracking ("Oui, Lovino, I miss him too. Don't we all? The poor man, fired without mercy, and after losing such a close friend..."). While writing, they had to be on guard: Ludwig was sitting behind them and Emma was right in front of them. It was fun: he liked being extra alert.

Matthew brainstormed different ways to approach the suspects. Vash explained why Emma seemed to him the most likely thief, as she seemed to be the only one with a motive, but Matthew noted that actually Milen could easily have one that they didn't know about, since he lived next door to Herakles and anything could have happened between them before the start of school. He also told Vash that Sadik, the senior guy, had been Herakles's enemy since they were kids, and that their hatred towards each other came in phases, which meant Sadik's anger could have been at a point where it had just escalated this far. As for Ludwig and Alfred, Matthew at first didn't think they could have anything to do with it, especially his brother, who he knew very well and would never steal something so dear to someone, but after Vash had repeated what Herakles had told him and what Kiku's opinion on this was ("Alfred screams all of the time, just like Ludwig-san. It is their natural behavior."), he hesitated and said that, actually, the way Alfred had yelled at Herakles was very strange.

"My brother yells all the time, and it's not like he's never angry, but the way he yelled at Herakles was so not like him... Why would Alfred say 'You think you're funny with your stupid cats'? He doesn't hate cats, and he doesn't usually say 'You think you're so funny?' out of the blue... Usually he's the one being funny..."

Even stranger, said Matthew, was Ludwig's reaction. As Kiku had said, Ludwig always yelled at people. But this time with Herakles, he hadn't yelled: instead, he had glared at him. That was not his usual way of getting angry, and Matthew couldn't see a reason for Ludwig to be angry in the first place. Sure, he was the type of person to get easily agitated by Herakles's laziness, or maybe his debts, but not by his cats: normally, Ludwig either liked cute animals or was neutral towards them. Vash argued that perhaps his reaction was different with _stray_ animals that were not cute, but Matthew stated that cuteness was a matter of opinion, and that Ludwig, unlike certain people in the class, did not have any particular dislike towards stray animals.

Vash asked who those "certain people" were, as he had only seen students _cooing_ over the cats for no apparent reason, and when Matthew answered "Elisaveta, mostly," he added her to the suspect list.

Their quiet discussion was suddenly interrupted by loud sobs. For a second, Vash was worried that Alfred had somehow found the flower, but then he saw that the person crying was Herakles.

"What on Earth is the matter, Héracle?" Mr. Bonnefoy, of course, had no idea what was going on.

"I..." Herakles sniffed. "I miss my cats... I have so many more at home, but not these seven... these seven were my _favorite_ ones! That's why I chose them, and only them, to take to school, and then..."

Elisaveta suddenly jumped up from her chair, looking wild with rage.

"Be happy it was just the cats, Herakles!" she shouted. "Be happy it was just the stupid cats!" Her voice sounded like it was going to break. Her eyes looked sad, but her entire face looked furious. Roderich tried to hush her back down, but she refused to listen.

"Silly me..." said Herakles, "...but it's not silly... I love my cats... They are my best friends, you know..." He yawned. "I'm getting drowsy... So much technology these days... Three girls, two brothers... Or more than two... Three times... The second to prevent the first; the third in vain to reverse the second... Now we count the shadows: two, four, six, seven... And the key to freedom is..."

After that, there was only snoring.


	10. Murmurs and Meetings

"I need to shut the door, you know," said Mr. Bonnefoy.

Most students had left the classroom, leaving nine behind, not including Alfred, who had just rushed out in a hurry. Herakles was asleep; Elisaveta was still looking at him with some sort of fury, while Roderich was still attempting to calm her down. Vash and Matthew were just watching. In the back corner of the classroom, Vladimir and Milen were gaping at Elisaveta (Vladimir was laughing; Milen was not). Closer to them, Ludwig was staring at Herakles, looking horrified, and Feliciano was tugging at him, trying to get his attention.

"Ludwig, Ludwig, come on! Classes are over! We can have fun now! We can make pasta! Or I guess you can boss me around at the training field if you prefer... Ludwig, what's the matter?! It's such a nice day today! The sun is shining..." But Ludwig barely even heard him. Feliciano took a piece of white cloth out of his bag and put it over Ludwig's shoulders as a blanket. Then he went over to Elisaveta and Roderich.

"And what's the matter with you? Can I help?" Neither of them responded. Feliciano waved his hand in front of Elisaveta's face without much impact, and then added:

"Hey, remember when I was little and you put me in a dress?"

Now Elisaveta turned to him and smiled. "Yes, we did have good times. That was fun. Thank you, Feli."

Vladimir smirked. "Good times, weren't they, Lizzy? Just like the time when _you_ were little and you used to dress in boys' clothing and actually _believed_ you were a boy! That was fun, wasn't it, Lizzy?"

Elisaveta gave Vladimir the evil eye and turned back to Feliciano. "Come, let's help Ludwig. I was going a bit nuts." She walked over to Ludwig and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry for yelling all those things, Ludwig. It must have been hardest of all for you, and then here I am, reminding you of... of _that_..."

"It wasn't your fault, Elisaveta," Ludwig answered. "I wasn't angry at you."

"You were angry at Herakles, and I don't blame you," Elisaveta answered. "You were angry for the very same reason I was."

"If I may mention my opinion," Roderich added, "I think you were both overreacting. Herakles never mentioned anything about the events in question, so there is no need to bring them up all of a sudden."

"What events?" Feliciano asked, but before anyone could answer, he clamped his hand in front of his mouth. "Oh! _T-those_ events... That was sad and scary!" He gave Ludwig a hug while Roderich finished his explanation.

"Herakles has nothing to do with those events and need not be brought in comparison with them. He was simply sad about his cats. I would be devastated if my piano was stolen, so I understand that someone could feel that way about his cats..."

Elisaveta nodded, muttering, "Yes, I know, I'm sorry", but Ludwig jumped up and shouted:

"You don't understand. It's not about his cats! This has nothing to do with his stupid cats!"

"Of course it doesn't," said Elisaveta. "It has nothing to do with him at all."

"Maybe it is time we left now," Milen said softly to Vladimir, and the two of them headed off.

"Perhaps it is time we _all_ left now," said Mr. Bonnefoy, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor. "Classes are long finished and I need to get my daily exercise!"

"Daily exercise, huh?" Elisaveta raised an eyebrow, and along with Roderich, she walked out the door. Mr. Bonnefoy went in that direction as well, holding the door open to rush the others out.

Ludwig and Feliciano went over to Herakles.

"Mmm," said Herakles, barely awake, as Feliciano shook him and poked him to wake him up.

"Listen, Herakles," Ludwig said clearly, but a lot softer than he usually spoke. "Answer me. Were you dreaming something or just fooling around?"

"I was dreaming..." Herakles muttered, "but I don't really remember..."

"The key to freedom is what?" Ludwig asked, this time sounding more threatening, more intense. "The key to freedom is _what_?"

"I don't know..." said Herakles. "I don't remember what I thought or said..."

Ludwig's fists tensed. "Then stop bringing it up. This is not about you. Either don't dream at all, or finish your sentences." He marched out of the classroom. Feliciano ran after him, and then the three remaining students followed: Herakles immediately lay down in the hallway, curled up like a cat with his bag as a pillow, while Vash and Matthew left him there and continued their own plans.

"What was that about?" Matthew whispered. Vash didn't know, and they didn't have much time to talk about it, because Matthew immediately went off to question their suspects. Meanwhile, Vash went outside where he did some homework and collected rocks. He brought the rocks to the machine and got a few small, useful items, though they were nothing too interesting and it took a long time before he received anything at all (he kept getting his own rocks back).

At the same time, he contemplated Elisaveta and Ludwig's strange behavior. It seemed completely irrational to Vash that Elisaveta had warned him against the machine. What was she afraid of: that it would malfunction? That would definitely be a shame, and a waste of money, but it was not something to be so worked up about. And then there was the big deal she and Ludwig had both made about Herakles and his cats: what exactly was the problem here? Their getting angry about the cats was definitely suspicious... But then they had said that it had nothing to do with the cats, and Ludwig had made it sound like it was Herakles' dreams that were bothering him. Elisaveta on the other hand had screamed at Herakles _before_ he became drowsy and started dreaming, and yet afterwards had claimed it had nothing to do with the cats or even with Herakles himself. According to Matthew, she had a problem with stray animals, which in combination with her outburst made her very suspicious. Thinking again about how she had attempted to keep him away from the machine, the thought arose in him that perhaps he might start to dislike her as much as he disliked Emma, but at that same moment, Emma strutted by in such a manner that Vash knew he couldn't possibly dislike anyone as much as her: she looked so fake and full of herself that he wanted to throw up. Her entire clique followed her, consisting not only of the friends she always gossiped with, but also a whole horde of other students from all years, and even a few of the teachers! He recognized the French teacher, the English teacher, the music teacher, the gym teacher...

"Is Antonio coming?" Lovino asked Emma.

"Of course he is," said Emma.

"No!" yelled the English teacher. "I won't allow it! Mr. Hernandez was fired for a reason!"

"And who are you to decide that?" Emma asked. "This is a club meeting, not class. Don't worry about inappropriate acts, because I won't tolerate bad behavior in my meetings. There'll be nothing to fuss about. Come along now, Arthur."

What was she thinking, calling a teacher by his first name? Didn't she have even the slightest bit of respect? And how big was this club supposed to be? He saw more than twenty people following Emma around, including six teachers and at least two middle schoolers! In the distance, he noticed Matthew talking to an older guy in a mask, probably for the suspect interviews. That must be Sadik, Vash thought to himself, since Sadik was the only person on the suspect list who was not in their class. He was going to watch their conversation, but when Emma's horde walked by, the masked senior suddenly turned away from Matthew, mumbled something, and went after Emma. Was he in Emma's club? What kind of things did they even do there, besides throwing parties and having useless debates?

Vash suddenly realized he was following them. He stopped. This wasn't his business. But then again, aside from Alfred, all the Stolen Cat Case suspects were going there, so if he went after them to watch, he could figure out some more things about them. He caught Matthew's eye and beckoned him to come along, and together, they trailed behind the horde of people, watching from a distance. When they went into Emma's meeting room, he stood behind a column so he wouldn't be noticed. Matthew sat down on a chair, but when a very strict-looking teacher didn't see him and almost sat on his lap, he quickly seated himself on the floor instead.

"Antonio has arrived! We are complete!" the French teacher shouted. Lovino, who was sharing a seat with Feliciano, jolted slightly and almost fell onto the floor. Feliciano giggled. Emma wiggled her fingers in a mischievous wave at the man who apparently had been the previous gym teacher, but she quickly stopped, and her face became serious.

"Enough of that, Lovino, Wally, Francis," she stated. "I hereby commence the meeting. We will discuss the following topics in order: cleanliness, Herakles' debts, and the admission of a new member into our club." She paused, then added in a firm voice: "No snacks during my meetings." She blushed slightly and put the waffle away that she'd been munching on. What a hypocrite.


	11. Team Emma

Emma's meeting had begun, and Vash could tell by the look on her face that such meetings caused her ego to rise even higher than it already was. She looked even bossier than usual, and much more business-oriented. The first topic was cleanliness, a repulsive subject that reminded him too much of Roderich Edelstein, who was also in the room, nodding at everything Emma said.

"May I have your attention please," said Emma. "However negligible it may seem, cleanliness is important for the future of this club. It just so happens that the school gave us permission to hold these club meetings on the condition that we would help make the school a better and cleaner place. And yet, certain club members, such as Feliks and Milen, are still disposing their garbage in the school gardens instead of in the garbage bin or the Exchange Machine. Raise your hand if you have anything to say about this. Yes, Tim?"

"I think cleanliness is of the utmost importance," said Tim-Govert, while Roderich and Ludwig nodded approvingly. "I think Feliks and Milen should give us part of their pocket money as punishment." Greedy Roderich nodded again, but Ludwig and several of the others looked skeptical.

"That's like totally unfair!" Feliks exclaimed. "I barely get any pocket money!"

"No interruptions, please," said Emma. "You may raise your hand if you wish to speak."

They argued for a long time about garbage. It was utterly ridiculous. Wasn't the answer obvious? No one should be allowed to throw their garbage in the school garden or any other place of nature, and people who disobeyed these rules should undo their actions by cleaning things up. There was no need to involve pocket money or club membership in this discussion.

Next in line was the subject of Herakles' debts. Vash immediately became more alert. He couldn't see where the masked guy - Sadik - was sitting, but he kept his eyes on Emma, Elisaveta, Ludwig, Milen and Vladimir. He needed to know all the suspects' reactions to Herakles and his financial issues.

"We need to make sure that Herakles pays off his debts as soon as possible, preferably before the end of this semester," said Emma. "I suggest we use a system where the longer he owes us money, the more he has to pay us back. Yes, Vladimir?" The vampire boy had raised his hand.

"Wouldn't that be inefficient? He'll just end up having more and more debts this way. You need a scarier punishment to threaten him to pay us back now, so that he won't keep delaying it!" Milen nodded at his friend's statement.

"The policy in this club does not include frightening people, thank you very much," said Emma. "Ludwig, what do you have to say?"

Ludwig sighed. "Herakles is having a hard time." His voice sounded tense. "He lost something dear to him, and I suggest we give him some extra time before we bother him about his debts. He has other things on his mind right now."

This was the last thing Vash had expected Ludwig to say. It had seemed clear that he had a problem with Herakles, probably involving his strange dreams, and he had expected him to say something negative about him, since he had seemed so angry. And Vash wasn't the only one to be taken by surprise. A whole bunch of hands flashed up in protest, including Tim-Govert's and Elisaveta's, but Emma shushed them.

"Calm down, everybody. Ludwig's proposal is not an unreasonable one." The debate continued, and Emma tried to make compromises between the arguing parties. After several attempts to agreement, she looked at her watch and stated:

"Enough about Herakles. It is time to examine the contestants applying for club membership: bring them in!" She signaled to Ludwig, who stood up and went to the side of the room, where he opened the door and let in three students. The first was short male - probably a freshman - and had dark, curly hair. The second looked like a beach girl and her full figure made her look slightly older than the boy, but too young to be a senior: maybe she was a sophomore, or perhaps she just looked older because girls start puberty at a younger age. The third was the guy in the mask: Sadik.

"Welcome, contestants, to our admission ceremony." She turned to the other club members. "These, my friends, are the three contestants wishing to gain entry into our association. Only one of the three will be accepted into our group, and it's up to us to decide which one. The choice is between contestant number one, Nikola..." She paused here to let a few people applaud or boo the boy. "...contestant number two, Lucija..." Another pause to leave room for reactions. "...and contestant number three, Sadik!" She led the three contestants to a table in front, behind which they had to take place, facing the audience of club members.

"I'm in! I'm in! Contestant number four is Peter Kirkland!" A little boy in a sailor hat had rushed into the room and was shouting in a high-pitched voice. He looked like he belonged in elementary school, but he was wearing a middle school uniform.

"Get out of here, Peter," said Emma. "Club membership application is for high school students only."

Peter stomped on the floor in protest. "That's a lie! Raivis and Jerome are still in middle school!" Raivis? Vash frowned at the idea of one of his sister's friends being a member of this club.

Emma rolled her eyes. "Raivis and Jerome are not _eleven years old_. They'll be in high school next year."

"That's not fair!" yelled Peter. "I'm not eleven: I'm twelve! I've just had my birthday, you know! And _Jerome_ was eleven when _he_ was admitted: that's a lot younger than I am!"

Emma shook her head and sighed. "Jerome was _mature_ , and he had friends. Nobody likes you."

Peter started protesting again, but Emma ignored him and ordered Ludwig to remove him from the room, as he was "disturbing the admission ceremony".

"Now we can finally begin the procedures," she stated. "Contestant number one, will you please step forward?"

The boy called Nikola now became the center of attention. Emma asked him numerous personal questions, and Vash didn't understand why anyone would let himself be prodded in such a manner just to join a stupid club.

"Do you like partying?" she asked him.

"Yes," he said.

"Do you think you are able to engage in discussions without offending others or feeling attacked?"

"Sure, if people will stop bugging me about my name."

"It sounds like you're already offended," she said, sounding amused. "Is it true that you've been having problems with your mental health?"

Nikola frowned. "So would you if you had nine siblings bothering you every day."

For a second, Emma looked worried or angry or something in-between, but then she resumed her bossy expression.

"You may now sit down. Contestant number two, will you step forward?" It was the beach girl Lucija's turn.

"Do you like to party?"

"Always," said Lucija.

"Do you think you'd fit in here?"

"Yes," said Lucija.

"I've heard from Arthur Kirkland that you've been caught throwing garbage in the flower beds. Are you willing to fix this behavior if you join our club?"

"Of course I am," said Lucija.

Emma went on, mentioning a few times when Lucija had acted hateful or ignorant. Lucija smiled, apologized, and said that was in the past, and she would make sure not to do anything silly like that again. Several people cheered.

"Thank you, Lucija," said Emma, signaling for her to sit down. It was Sadik's turn now.

"Sadik, will you take your mask off for this meeting? We would like to see your face."

Several people laughed. Sadik briefly lifted up the mask, winked at the audience, and put it back over his face.

"Sadik," said Emma, "do you like partying?"

"Yes," said Sadik.

"And do you like debating?"

"Yes."

"Is it true that you have often bullied Herakles?"

"No," said Sadik. "Our hatred has never been one-sided. Our families have hated each other ever since our mothers fought over the same girl. That time, his mother used a nasty trick to beat us, but I'm not like his mother and neither is he. We fight fair. We don't bully; we don't do sneaky things. We fight and take revenge openly. Alfred asked me about it just before this meeting, and I told him the whole story of our feud. That's how it is."

Emma and most of the others seemed content with this answer. When Emma mentioned some other people Sadik had bullied, his answers were a lot less clear, and some people in the audience started booing, but Ludwig told them to stop and that this club should treat people fairly.

"Alright," said Emma when her interviews were over. "Before we vote, are there any questions?"

Arthur raised his hand. "What happens if you want to leave?"

Emma looked like someone was trying to convince her that the moon was made of cheese.

"Leave what?" she asked, blinking. "Leave the club? Don't be ridiculous. Once you're in this club, you can never leave. Since there aren't any real questions, let's start the voting. Who votes for contestant number one: Nikola?"

A couple people raised their hands hesitantly.

"Who votes for contestant number two: Lucija?"

A significantly larger amount of people raised their hands, and even more after Emma had raised hers. Almost the entire room now had their hands in the air.

"And who votes for contestant number three: Sadik?"

From where he was standing, Vash could only see one hand in the air, and he was guessing there were only two or three in total.

"Well," said Emma, "that seems pretty ob..."

She stopped and stared right into Vash's face.

"Oh... Why, hello there, Vash..." She put on her sweetest smile. "I see we _do_ have a fourth contestant, after all. Will you please step forward, contestant number four? We've all been waiting for this moment for a long time, haven't we?"

"I..." Everyone was looking at him now. He felt caught in a trap. If he didn't go along with Emma's proposal, she would know he was up to something. But if he pretended to be interested in joining their stupid club, he could end up stuck there forever! After all, Emma had just said that once you were in, there was no way out...

"I'm not here to join your ridiculous club," he stated sternly. "Let Lucija join. She had the most votes. Fair is fair."

"If you weren't here to apply for membership," asked Emma, "then why did you intrude in our club meeting?"

"I was... lost," Vash muttered. "I... thought we were going to class, so I was following my classmates, but they went here instead."

"Classes are already over," said Emma.

"I figured that," said Vash.

"Then why did you stay and watch?" asked Emma.

"I... thought it looked interesting," said Vash. "But I was wrong. This club is nothing but hypocrisy and useless debating, and I will not waste another moment here, thank you very much. Goodbye." He turned around and left. Matthew followed him silently. When they were at their dorm, he mumbled: "Nice save."

"That was close though," said Vash. And it wasn't as safe as Matthew seemed to think. Emma must have realized he was lying. How much was she able to guess?

"Did you get any interviews done before Emma's meeting?" he asked, trying to regain control over the situation.

"Most of them..." Matthew showed him the notes he'd taken about the subtle conversations he had held, and they examined them together. Sadik's interview explained his mutual hatred with Herakles in detail: he was clearly the most cooperative and the least suspicious out of all the subjects. He had a strong alibi, confirmed by six people unrelated to the incident, and he had such an obvious motive that Vash and Matthew didn't think he would attempt anything sneaky against Herakles, since their feud would make him the first person anyone would suspect. Vash crossed him off the list, leaving Milen, Vladimir, Elisaveta, Ludwig, Emma and Alfred.

"I haven't talked to Alfred yet... It'd be a bit awkward interviewing my own brother as a crime suspect, and I won't be able to use the 'pretend I'm Alfred' trick on him either. And I couldn't find Milen or Vladimir anywhere, so I'll chat with them at the table sometime... But at least I could get a little bit out of the other three... Ludwig and Elisaveta both admitted they'd gotten angry at Herakles today, but neither of them wanted to give many details. I asked Ludwig if it was related to his cats, and then he yelled at me and said it had nothing to do with the stupid cats. Then I asked if it was related to Herakles's weird dreams, and he got kind of tense and quiet... I asked Elisaveta the same questions, but she didn't really tell me anything, and when I mentioned the dreams, she seemed confused and didn't see what that had to do with anything and that Herakles had had dreams like that as long as she could remember. Both Ludwig and Elisaveta said that they normally had no problem with Herakles, except for the occasional annoyance of his laziness. Emma did mention something about Herakles owing her money, but after that she'd said that she didn't harbor any hatred towards him and that the club was certain to find a solution for his financial problems."

"What about their alibis?"

"Ludwig has none. He said he'd spent lunch break on his own because he 'needed to think', and Feliciano added that he had looked for him outside, thinking he was training or picking flowers, and that he'd gotten really worried when he couldn't find him anywhere, and that actually, he was still a bit worried about him, since he'd been kind of sad for a long time and overworked himself a lot. Emma, on the other hand, said she was in the cafeteria, and a whole bunch of her friends confirmed this. As for Elisaveta, she claimed she was with Roderich the entire time, but the only one who confirmed that was Roderich himself, so it's possible that they did something together..."

"Speaking of Elisaveta," said Vash, "did you find out whether she has some sort of technology phobia?"

"Not that I know of..." Matthew muttered. "Why would you think that? You only just met her... We did a computer project last year and she never freaked out..."

"She came up to me once when I was using the Exchange Machine," he answered, "and gave me some sort of warning. She seemed very serious about it. She told me to watch out, and that the Machine disturbed her and was a stupid way for me to spend my time."

Matthew clenched the sheets of the bed he was sitting on. He looked perplexed, like someone had slapped him in the face. His lips moved, but no sound came out. _This must be how he whispers..._


	12. Team Wallflower

This time, Vash decided not to interrupt Matthew, but to wait patiently for him to repeat what he had said so softly. Matthew looked up at him, not understanding at first what he was waiting for, but in the end, he seemed to take the hint.

"How can she say that?" he repeated. "The machine's not stupid or disturbing: it's the greatest invention ever made. So many people here use it, but I think lots of them don't realize that it's not just any old useful machine. It's so much more..." Matthew paused and looked up at Vash. When he nodded in confirmation that he had heard him this time, Matthew continued, his voice dropping again, so Vash had to concentrate very hard to understand him.

"It talks to me sometimes. I think it understands me better than most of the students do. One time when I was crying, it gave me a teddy bear. Kumajolly was jealous, but it was still the sweetest thing: it was like getting a hug."

Vash was silent. He didn't believe a machine could have feelings: it was obvious that the bear had been a coincidence. And yet it was a beautiful image: a machine as a friend. A machine was something you could trust. A machine would never have sneaky intentions or a false personality. A machine would not follow its friend around like a needy duckling, but at the same time it wouldn't boss its friend around or be annoyingly nosy either. It wouldn't be spoiled or expect gifts and favors. Perhaps Matthew was smart in picking a machine for a friend, since that seemed to be the best kind of friend there could possibly be.

"You think I'm silly now?" Matthew asked.

"No," Vash answered. "I think you're a lot smarter than most people in our class." Matthew grinned, obviously getting the wrong message, so Vash added: "That was not a compliment: it was an insult towards the rest of the class." But Matthew just laughed: he didn't seem to care whether or not Vash's words were meant in a kind way. He clearly wasn't easily offended like Roderich was.

After finishing their homework, they went to dinner, where Matthew tried to start a conversation with Vladimir and Milen, but they looked like they couldn't care less.

"Dudes, where were you in lunch break?!" Matthew asked them in his loudest voice, which was probably softer than Alfred's whisper. "I was looking all over the place for you guys! I was gonna tell you about my new vampire movie!"

Vladimir didn't even turn around. Milen just said "Basement".

"So what _do_ vampires do during lunch? I mean, they can't eat and stuff... Must be awful: no hamburgers, ever! Poor you, Vlad! I would die!"

Vladimir had started chatting with two of the teachers about magic: one of them, Vash noticed, must be the third Mr. Kirkland, seeing as he had the same eyebrows as the other two, and Vash recognized him as "Arthur" from the meeting: he'd been the only one who didn't seem to agree with Emma's bossiness... Milen, meanwhile, was looking at Matthew as if he was stupid, and didn't answer the question about vampires' lunch.

At the same time, Vash could hear bits and pieces of all the idiotic conversations going on.

"...and because of you and all the other stupid tattletales I now have to sit all alone in my office..." "You're not alone, stupid frog!" "I know that, chéri..." "Stop calling me sherry! My sensitivity to alcohol is not something to make fun of!"

"Do I look alright?" "Oh, shut it: you look fine, Roderich... Or actually... you look a bit pale: did you put powder on your face again?"

"Kiku, how much money would a human being cost?" "Silly Ludwig, why would you want to buy a human being? Why don't you buy something nice, like Italian food, or paintbrushes?" "I wasn't talking to you, Feli..." "Ludwig-san, I don't think human beings are for sale anymore..."

"It's annoying how few girls there are in this class: can't we borrow some of the freshmen, sophomores and middle schoolers? There are at least five girls in my little brother's class..." "Please don't borrow Natalia..."

"...so we need to make sure our education is stricter! All these immature Western teachers do not know how to teach! We should make use of drills! Some of these children don't even know how to count!" "I can count to pasta!"

He even heard Roderich in a far corner of the table complaining how bad the food was - what an ungrateful brat: at least they were getting free meals here! - and that at least this was good for his diet. Roderich was on a diet? That was even stupider. He didn't need a diet, just more exercise, and if he _had_ needed a diet for whatever reason, eating less dinner and more pastries was not a very efficient way to do it. Besides, most people who went on diets thought they were too fat, and Roderich didn't look fat...

When dessert came, Roderich looked embarrassed that he was eating a piece of cake, and Vash shook his head in irritation: why would it be such a problem to eat sweet food?

Emma, on the other hand, was not modest with her food. During the appetizer, she kept looking at him and he'd gotten nervous that she knew he was up to something, but ever since the main course, she'd been preoccupied with her food. She was now munching passionately on a chocolate-covered waffle, not caring that it was "junkfood" or that she had some chocolate on her face.

"You have something on your face," said her brother Tim-Govert, but she just laughed.

"Some people eat to live, and others live to eat."

Vash nodded at her, trying to show his approval, but then he quickly looked away again: he needed to maintain his neutral attitude so that she wouldn't start inviting him to her annoying parties again, or worse, think that he actually had wanted to become a member of her club and was too shy to admit it. But he was glad to see her being herself for a change instead of hiding behind her mask of feigned sweetness, and pleased that even someone like her could enjoy life in a basic way. One didn't need manmade pleasures such as friendship to be content: all a person needed were the bare necessities. At the same time, he felt that his reasoning was only partially correct, since chocolate was just as much manmade as friendship was.

After dinner, they went back to the dorms, and Vash was surprised to see that a lot of the dorm doors suddenly had signs on them: apparently, some of the pairs of roommates had invented a name for their room. He read _"Girl Power"_ , _"The Philosophers"_ , _"Marvel meets Ghibli"_ , and even _"Totally Magical Fabulous (not) Sparkling Awesome People! and pasta!"_ on the threesome dorm. His classmates were so immature.

When he came to his room, Matthew was already there, brushing his teeth. There was a huge plush polar bear next to his pillow (Kumaj... whatever that teddy's name was) and a much smaller teddy bear at the foot of the bed (probably the one he'd gotten from the Machine).

Vash looked up above the bed and smiled. Matthew had taped Vash's forget-me-not onto the wall: a wallflower. So he did indeed like puns, then.

Minutes later, Vash was in bed, staring at the ceiling. There was so much to think about: lessons, his alliance with Matthew, the Stolen Cat Case, the events at Emma's club meeting, the ridiculous behavior of nearly everyone in their class, and of course the machine...

When Matthew had already fallen asleep, Vash was still pondering. Quietly, he stood up, and wrote something on a piece of paper. He went out of the room and nodded to himself. After carefully taping the paper to the front of their dorm door, he went back to bed.

The sign on their door read: " _Wallflower Pact_ ".


	13. Take Care

To be honest, Vash didn't think Vladimir and Milen were very suspicious. Ludwig had been acting strange and had no alibi, but it had seemed clear that it was unrelated to the cats and related instead to Herakles's dreams. As for Emma, however much he wanted her to be the cat thief, she did have an alibi that was confirmed by a lot of people, so it wasn't actually as likely as he would have liked to think. This left Alfred and Elisaveta to be the most likely criminals.

It was only two o'clock, but classes were already over, because two teachers had gotten sick. This meant Vash had extra time to study, extra time to trade, and extra time to work on the case. Alfred hadn't been questioned at all yet, and they'd decided Vash would do this: since Alfred was Matthew's brother, Vash could see him from a more neutral perspective. Matthew, meanwhile, had gone to the cafeteria to see whether the cooking staff could confirm Emma's alibi, since the only witnesses until now had been her own friends.

Vash looked for Alfred, but couldn't find him in the usual places where popular students would commonly hang out. When he went back to the hallway, he thought he heard someone crying. He looked in the direction of the sound and saw Roderich and Elisaveta. What was Roderich crying about this time? Had he heard an out-of-tune piano? But when he saw that they were looking at the ugly painting on the wall, he was a bit puzzled. Roderich was emotionally touched by bad art? Or was he crying at how horribly that painting was made? Vash sighed at his former friend's patheticness and walked on.

He had spent a long time searching, but couldn't find Alfred anywhere, and he was going to give up, when he heard a loud voice. Of course! He should have just closed his eyes and listened, and he would have found the noisy American a lot faster. He followed the voice, but when he spotted him, he stopped. Alfred was talking to Herakles in a way that was not at all like Alfred.

"How much do you know?"

Herakles blinked. He clearly had no idea what Alfred was talking about. Vash stayed in the background, watching them from a distance behind Alfred, who seemed impatient about Herakles's lack of response.

"Don't play dumb with me," he said angrily. "How much do you know? What are you trying to say in those stupid dreams, huh?" The dreams again... What was so anger-provoking for both Alfred and Ludwig about Herakles's dreams?

Herakles opened his mouth to say something, but Alfred interrupted him.  
"It's not my fault, you know. It's all that damn brat Emma's fault! If you knew what she was gonna..." He stopped. Vash couldn't see his expression, since he had his back towards him, but his voice sounded broken somehow, and he added in what was probably his whisper: "I bet you wouldn't even care."

"Alfred, I don't know..." Herakles mumbled. "I don't know what I said... I don't remember my dreams well..."

"Piss off then," said Alfred, "and quit provoking me. You're not clever. You're not funny."

 _How much do you know?_ That was something only a guilty person would ask. When Herakles left, Vash tapped Alfred on the shoulder.

"Alfred, I know what you did."

Alfred jumped, and stared at Vash, looking very startled indeed, but he immediately raised his voice to what Vash guessed was a mask of fake confidence. "Oh yeah? How would _you_ know? You weren't even there!"

Vash didn't answer: he only stared at him sternly.

"Dude, I did nothing."

Vash kept staring. Something in Alfred's voice seemed to pop again.

"You have a sister, don't you? I saw you head off to the middle school. I saw you! You'd do anything for her, wouldn't you? That's what people told me: that you're very close! That you _care_ about each other, like every sibling should! Something wrong with that, huh?"

Vash didn't understand what Lili had to do with any of this, so he decided to get to the point.

"Alfred, where exactly were you yesterday during lunch break?"

"Huh? What? Why yesterday? I was outside, I think. Picnicking, eating hamburgers or some other lunch, hanging out with the teachers maybe? I dunno. What's that got to do with..." He let out an awkward laugh. "Wait a sec, dude. What exactly are you accusing me of?"

He might as well say it now. "Alfred, I think you stole Herakles's cats."

Alfred stared at him in disbelief for several seconds. Then, without a warning, he started laughing hysterically.

"CATS!" he gasped between bits of loud laughter. "You thought I... stole... the _cats_!" Alfred was roaring with laughter. He looked ridiculous. He fell on the floor, giggling, and Vash didn't understand what the hell was wrong with him. He pulled Matthew's annoying brother up from the floor and set him back on his feet.

"I didn't steal anyone's cats, don't worry," Alfred said once he'd calmed down a bit.

Vash frowned. "Then what were you talking to Herakles about?"

"Just some old business." Clearly none of his business. Alfred's utter surprise when he had mentioned the cats had almost been enough proof by itself that he hadn't stolen them: now all there was left to do was to check his alibi, and after that, he could probably be scrapped as a suspect and they wouldn't bother him anymore. They were investigating the Stolen Cat Case, not whatever shady business Alfred and Herakles were apparently into: probably related to illegal trading or something of the sort.

When he left Alfred to see if Matthew had returned, he noticed Roderich and Elisaveta were still there, hugging each other and staring at the painting. He still heard those soft sobs, and he found it utterly ridiculous that anyone would cry so much over a painting.

"The cooking staff confirmed Emma's alibi..." He hadn't even noticed Matthew, and he was disappointed to hear this news. Did that mean they had to eliminate her from the list? What was even the point of figuring out who stole the cats if they couldn't get Emma in trouble and reveal her true, selfish personality? Sure, it was a good mind exercise, but there were enough ways to exercise the brain without pushing your nose into other people's business... Why had he ever even started researching this useless case: what was so important about figuring out who had stolen some stray cats?

"I'll always remember those words," said a voice choked up with tears. He looked in the direction of the painting again and saw Roderich's arm around his girlfriend. That was when he realized the person crying was not Roderich: it was Elisaveta. And selfish, greedy, vain, cowardly, pathetic Roderich was comforting her.


	14. Unexpected

10.00 AM, the next day. Breakfast had been uneventful, and so had math and history, except for the peculiarities of the teachers: the math teacher, Mr. Wang, had continuously yelled how he was the oldest person in the school and how therefore all students must respect his authority; the history teacher, Mr. Bondevik, as it appeared, was afraid of strangers. The very young-looking man didn't seem to mind Vash all too much (perhaps because of their similar neutral facial expressions), but when it was Feliks and Toris's turn to introduce themselves, he suddenly became extremely shy. Then it turned out that Feliks was shy of strangers too, so the first ten minutes of history class were spent watching Feliks hide behind Toris and the history teacher hide behind his desk.

Meanwhile, Vash had kept an eye on Emma and Elisaveta. Emma kept looking in his direction again, and it bothered him. He was still worried that she might have realized he was up to something, and he couldn't tell whether or not his sneaking into her meeting had caused her to find him suspicious.

Elisaveta made him equally uncomfortable. There was the fuss she had made about Herakles and his cats, and the claim she'd made afterwards that it had nothing to do with Herakles at all, and of course the way she had warned him not to use the Machine... And now Elisaveta, who according to Emma and Feliks's gossip was the toughest girl in the school (with the possible exception of Ivan's sister), had cried over an ugly painting. Her behavior was making less and less sense.

Unexpected too had been the behavior of his former best friend, Roderich Edelstein. He had never seen Roderich act caring or supportive until yesterday. It went completely against the image he had of him, and this was bothersome, because did that mean his image had been biased? Vash always tried his best to be entirely neutral in his judgment, and he'd always trusted this neutral judgment to be correct. But what if there were biased bends in his neutrality and flaws in his judgment? If his judgment was always right, then why was he surprised when Roderich showed care, when Elisaveta showed weakness, and when Alfred threatened someone and then burst into a laughing fit? And what about the rest of his judgment? Was Ludwig perhaps less strong than he seemed, or Ivan less crazy, or Matthew less trustworthy? Could he be wrong about Emma too? And what about the Machine?

But the Machine was not a living thing. It was much easier to judge an object than a person, which automatically made the machine more reliable than the people in his class. He didn't need to question that. He didn't even need to think about this. Collecting rocks would calm him down; the fresh air, the solitude, the simple activity, the neutral grey rocks, and the reliability of the machine would all be a relief after all these confusing interactions between confusing people.

So for the 10 AM break, he had sent Matthew after Vladimir and Milen, who still needed to be questioned properly. This way, he didn't have to be bothered with the Stolen Cat Case and could collect rocks in peace. He also went over to the middle school grounds to say hello to his sister. It was great to see her again: they didn't talk much, but just enjoyed sitting together. Lili's friends were there too. Her scared friend (Raivis) looked like he was hiding something behind his back; her other two friends were holding cards and some money. It was pretty clear that they were gambling, and Vash normally would have told his sister not to hang out with such people anymore, but she looked so happy that instead, he just told her not to let any of her money go to waste. Seeing his sister, especially since she was so content, made him feel more relaxed and put him in a better mood, so that once he'd collected some rocks, he felt a lot better, even though he was still a bit uneasy about Emma and Elisaveta and everyone else who had acted strange. On the way back to the machine, he whistled a Swiss folk tune, and instead of letting the noisy students around him annoy him, he let their silly voices blur together in a buzzing background sound, and he felt comfortably alone. When he went inside, he thought he heard a rooster's cry. That must have come from outside: there weren't any roosters in the school building, of course. But he didn't know there were roosters here to begin with...

The machine didn't seem to want rocks anymore: all Vash kept receiving in exchange were more rocks. So instead of handing in rocks endlessly, he went to the bathroom, took a roll of toilet paper and brought it back to the machine.

It worked, or at least thus far that he didn't get a rock. All that he did get, however, was a piece of scrap paper. Surely one little piece of paper wasn't worth as much as an entire roll of toilet paper?

He was about to put it back when he noticed a very faint handwriting on one side. He examined it more closely: it seemed to be some sort of letter.

 _Thanks for all the things you've done for me, and just for being there._

 _I'm so happy to be your friend._

Vash's heart started pounding. How on Earth could this be possible? Was it true after all what Matthew had said? The machine was, indeed, alive? He was not about to believe anything silly like that... What would that even mean?

Only then did he see that the letter was signed _"Matthew Williams"_.

Vash frowned. If Matthew had written him this letter, then he was getting the wrong idea about their alliance. He quickly went to find Matthew, which seemed to be a hard task at first, because how does one find somebody who is already hard to notice when he is right next to you? But it soon proved easy, because Matthew came running right up to him, 'shouting' (not much louder than his usual whisper) something about a haunted basement, but he ignored him and said:

"Matthew, if you think that our collaboration project is a sign of an existing friendship between us, you are mistaken."

"Eh?!" Matthew looked bewildered.

"I do not mean to hurt your feelings," Vash added. "I just do not have any need for friendship. I appreciate you a lot more than most people in the school, but that doesn't mean we have to be friends..."

"Eh..." Matthew stammered, "I... I don't think I was really... trying to be your friend... was I? I mean, I would like to, but if you don't want any friends, that's cool with me... I guess we could be... allies... or business partners, or just acquaintances... Don't worry about hurting my feelings, though. I'm already happy to be appreciated! Heck, I'm already happy to be _noticed_!"

Vash nodded in relief, but then frowned and added: "Then why did you write me that letter?"

"Eh?!"

Vash showed Matthew the letter and he burst out laughing.

"Where did you even get that letter, Vash?"

"From the Machine."

"Well then," said Matthew, "why would I put it in there if I wrote it for you?"

Vash thought about that, but he couldn't think of any suitable answers, and besides, it sounded like a rhetorical question, so he waited for Matthew to continue.

"I wrote that for the Machine, silly!" Matthew laughed. "The Machine is my friend. I wrote that before the summer!"

Vash had to laugh at his mistake. They sat down together by a wall near the machine and laughed a little more.

"First time I've seen you laughing," said Matthew, and they were quiet for a while, enjoying the peace of that silence, just like he had done with Lili, though the silence was occasionally interrupted by teachers and first-years running back and forth across the hall.

Vash found it surprisingly comforting to be quiet together, and also surprisingly comforting that Matthew did not feel the necessity to be friends with him. Now that he knew there was no fake, forceful situation involved, it made him wonder if perhaps they _could_ enjoy being friends, or at least business partners... He'd been hesitating whether they should give up on the Stolen Cat Case now that Emma was very unlikely to be the thief, but now he thought maybe they should continue, just for the fun of doing something together.

"I wonder if it means anything that you got my friendship note, though..." Matthew mumbled very softly, and Vash was surprised at how well he could understand him. "Maybe the Machine wants to be friends with you..."

After a few more minutes of pleasant silence, Matthew gave Vash an update on what he had figured out from his 'undercover' chat with Vladimir and Milen: they spent their breaks in the school basement every day and claimed it was haunted (they had shown Matthew the basement and he hadn't seen any ghosts, so it was likely that this was just their imagination), and two teachers - Lukas Bondevik (history and art) and Arthur Kirkland (English) - often joined them to perform 'black magic' with Vladimir while Milen watched them and ate his lunch. In yesterday's lunch break, only the history teacher had been there with him, because the English teacher had been playing 'frog chases wizard around the school grounds' with the French teacher. Matthew laughed at this part and added that those two teachers had raised him together and had argued as long as he could remember.

Vladimir had told Matthew that he had no problems with Herakles. Milen, on the other hand, disliked Herakles because they were neighbors, and considered his cats to be a plague and complained that they used his garden as a toilet. In other words, they both had an alibi, and only Milen had a motive.

Later that day, in English class, Arthur Kirkland confirmed Milen and Vladimir's location during the cat incident (though he did not count as an actual witness of their alibi, since he hadn't actually been there). Vash also asked him whether all the Kirkland teachers were related, and he answered that yes, they were, and that there were in fact six of them in total, though the oldest (the music teacher) didn't live with them anymore, and the youngest two were still at middle school. He then asked which of the Kirklands had made the Exchange Machine, and Mr. Kirkland answered that he was the sole inventor and had created it with black magic, but that his brother Alastair (the science teacher) had helped him build it. He then started an entirely unrelated and incomprehensible story involving hobbits, mint bunnies, 'Dumbledora the Explorer' and a poor unicorn that Alfred had neglected. He seemed to be very much worked up about these things, and it made Vash wonder whether he had some mental issues. He most certainly did not believe in black magic, and even less in 'Dumbledora' whatever. Then again, everyone at this school seemed to have issues: it might as well have been an institution.

He went back to the Machine during the next break. He first checked if his rocks would work again, but he still got only rocks in return. He then went to fetch another roll of toilet paper: when he put this in the machine, he received a ruler. That was useful enough...

Just when he was going to leave, he saw a marker lying on the floor. He picked it up. No one would miss such an item and he didn't have much use for a permanent marker himself at the moment, so he put it in the machine. When he saw what came out, he blinked in confusion. A twenty-euro banknote? He was certain that the marker could only be worth two, or five at the most. What a lucky catch.

When he reached his hand out to take the money and put it in his purse, he felt something hard underneath. He put the money away and looked what it was: it was a rock, the first rock he had ever given the machine, with a smiley face scribbled onto it with permanent marker.


	15. Not the Only One

A blur of voices in class. The fragments of sentences uttered around him melted together in Vash's mind. He couldn't concentrate on anything. He didn't know what anyone was saying, or which bunch of words belonged to which sentence, for his mind was on what had just happened...

"Welcome to art class - I saw them kiss - oh my god - pizza - have you seen this new anime - don't gossip about - I miss my grandpa a lot too - have you seen the geography teacher - as if I would ever be in a love triangle with a girl and a smelly werewolf - so huge have you seen them - perhaps we should listen to the - this week's project is about - big sister is indeed - last year's gym teacher always said - the Vikings - sometimes I don't know what to - Roderich you are so vain - a rooster walking in - no way McDonalds is much better - I saw it strolling through - the class is full of bastardos - I wish that I still lived in the Golden Age - I wish it was last year - don't be greedy Tim - Ludwig is my best friend - summon your troll Lukie then we'll shut up - but there aren't even any roosters nearby - and we bought these totally fancy tiaras - who is your best friend, Alfred - carve a design onto wood - shut the hell up I don't need a bestie - zzz - and guess what I got from the machine - Tony the alien is my bestie now - they always prefer my stupid brother - I do not trust that awful thing - so cute - but I thought Ludwig was an only - chocolate to cheer up - can you draw the Olympic Games - but food isn't worth - looking forward to Eurovision - why is he so often at that horrid machine - and people like Vash should stop excluding themselves - and Vash too he is so obsessed - he acts like he's better than everyone else - and also Alfred right or was that - did you see - my tiara - my drawing of you - they act as if it's a matter of life and death - ow he bit me - the second to prevent the first, the third in vain to reverse the second - so do you Lizzy you're such a hypocrite - pasta - I don't even ever use - I'll force him to join and I'll even make him VIP - I'm serious there is something wrong with - beware - dude how did a rooster - Vash - who - the fourth - why - the machine - Alfred asked me - will there be a fourth - force him to be my friend - know if he's still alive..."

Alive... Vash felt the rock with his fingertips. Was the Machine alive? He didn't believe this could be... but how...

Apparently, they had the same teacher for art as for history. He'd been explaining their first project, but Vash had no idea what anyone was saying. The teacher's words and the students' words were one big mush of noise and he couldn't distinguish any meanings or separate sentences, for his mind was on the rock in his hand, and the machine, and the face... the smiley face...

How was it possible for a rock to go into the machine just as an ordinary rock and nothing more, and then to come out with a drawing on it? Wasn't the whole point of the machine that it saved people's trash to give to others just the way it was, and not to edit it first? And could such editing even exist to begin with? Insides of machines didn't have hands to draw smileys with... He was certain the machine didn't have some special function where it could edit objects or combine them to make something new...

The other option, however, was equally implausible. A machine was not alive. It could not possess feelings or sense those of others, such as Matthew seemed to believe. It simply judged the value of objects, probably by scanning them, and occasionally, it made a mistake.

But if the machine couldn't have drawn the smiley face, then what had? Could it be that the face had been there from the start and he had failed to notice? This seemed unlikely: even if it was true that his judgment of _people_ had flaws, he could still trust his _general_ judgment, or at least his perception. Could there then be two identical rocks, one with and one without the drawing? This too seemed highly unlikely.

When at last, he realized what must have happened, he sighed in relief and laughed at his own stupidity. There were no supernatural explanations needed. The answer was obvious once he'd thought of it: someone must have been trading with the machine and received the rock and the permanent marker, and, not wanting to keep them, drew a face on the rock with the marker, put it back in the machine, and left the marker lying on the ground. That was all: it was pretty simple, actually, and any other reasoning could only be false.

He brought his mind back to class, and Matthew explained to him what their art project was about: the theme was 'Vikings', just like the current subject of their history class - this teacher clearly took a liking to Vikings - and they were supposed to make a wood carving. He was just about to go find a piece of wood and start carving, when the teacher made a new remark:

"For this project, you must work in pairs. I know this may be unpleasant for some, as it was for me when I was at high school, but this is exactly why I decided to make you do the same: I wouldn't want my students to suffer less than I did as a high school student. You can report your groups to me starting now, until the end of the class: if students are left over, they can go with each other."

A couple kids laughed, or whispered to each other how much they liked working in pairs and that the teacher was only doing them a favor. Vash most definitely did _not_ like group projects, but it certainly helped that for once, there was someone in the class who he didn't mind working with. He and Matthew would do just fine.

Most of the students, however, were not laughing, whispering, or frowning, but were all screaming at once, trying to form pairs as quickly as possible.

"Kiku, I choose you!"

"Ludwig, Ludwig, shall we go together?"

"Elisaveta, will you be my project partner?" "I suppose..."

"Milen and I are together whatever happens! There's no separating us!"

"I totally wanna work with you, Liet!" "Oh... but doesn't Ivan want... I wouldn't want him to end up all alone and unwanted..." "Yeah, and if you're annoying, I could go with Emma..."

"I thought Emma was going with me."

"Emma, how about we go together for a change? I think that would work out very well."

"Good morning, Emma! If I go with you, will we then be good friends?" All the people wanting to go with Emma: it irked him so much. _Emma, be my friend: then I'll be popular!_ Such superficialities and forced favors were the reason he hated friendship, but perhaps these things were never friendship to begin with. Did that mean he didn't hate friendship after all?

"I'm with Vash Zwingli."

Wait, who just said they were with Vash Zwingli? He looked in the direction of the voice, and was horrorstruck when he saw Emma standing next to the professor's desk.

"Wait a minute," he said, getting up from his chair. "There must be some mistake. I'm not going with Emma."

"What's written down, cannot be erased," the teacher replied coldly. "I will not allow for turning back."

"But I'm with Matthew," Vash added.

Now, the teacher looked up at him with an expression as if he found Vash's words to be entirely meaningless, and he stated in his low, but clear voice:

"I haven't the faintest idea who you're talking about."

Vash stood perplexed, until the teacher gestured for him to sit down. Emma, who still sat in front of him, turned around to look straight in his face and said:

"You need to let others decide things for you sometimes. You're not the only person in the world, you know."

What was wrong with her? She didn't like him, and she knew he didn't like her! When would she ever stop trying to pull him into her activities? And besides, this wasn't _entirely_ about him, since there was also a second student involved, who now didn't have a partner because of Emma.

"Matthew is a person in this class, you know." He wasn't sure who he was directing this at, but someone in this class should at least realize Matthew was a real person. "Alfred knows him." But Alfred wasn't listening, nor was anyone else, except for Emma, who turned towards him again.

"Maybe he is," she stated in a blunt voice that contrasted with her usual sweetsy sound. "And what about Flanny, and Wally? Why would Marney or whatever his name is deserve a project partner more than they do?" Here, she interrupted herself and whispered "I don't think that's his name" in a softer voice, after which she continued her blunt speech. "Here you are, sticking up for the invisible, and I bet you haven't even heard of these people!"

Vash frowned. Who were Flanny and Wally: someone's imaginary friends? Whoever they were, he did not believe they were actual people in this class. Perhaps Emma had just made them up to irritate him.

"Oh, forget it," said Emma, turning away from him, and Vash called after her: "His name is Matthew."

"Dude, it's okay. I'm used to it. I don't even care. I'll do the project on my own, or with whoever's left..."

"Hmm..." Vash whispered. "I wasn't actually trying to be helpful. I was just trying to find a way so that I wouldn't have to go with Emma."

Matthew laughed. Vash turned back to his desk and started writing lists of ways to save money, and lists of things to trade with the machine, and lists of efficient ways to spend his time. Art class lasted two periods, and during the second period, they had to sit with their project partner, so he had to spend an hour sitting next to Emma, while she blabbed about rumors, bragged about her homemade waffles and came up with stupid ideas for their project that he was certain Mr. Bondevik would not allow, such as carving in chocolate instead of wood (what a waste of good chocolate) or depicting the Vikings as 'cute'. He had almost forgotten about Matthew, until at the end of the class, he tapped on his shoulder.

"What is it now?" Vash grumbled. He was in a bad mood because of Emma's prank (had she intended this as a prank, or did she have other intentions?) and the torture of having to spend so much time with her.

"Eh, Vash, I thought... Since we share an interest in the Machine, I thought you might wanna know... He gave me a strange present, right before class..."

"He?"

"The Machine."

"Right..." Remembering the strange present he himself had gotten, he asked: "Was it a rock with a smiley face?"

"N-no..." Matthew looked confused. He then took a piece of toilet paper out of his pocket and put it in front of Vash on his desk. On it, something was written in a jagged, shaky handwriting, barely legible because it was in permanent marker on toilet paper and thus the marker ink had spread in a few places, but after examining it well, Vash could see that it read:

 _You're not the only one who's been forgotten._


	16. Friends and Enemies

Now it was just getting bizarre. The rock could be explained; this most certainly could not. Even if someone had put such a note into the Machine, why would it give that particular note specifically to Matthew, who was, indeed, forgotten?

"He knows us," Matthew whispered with a smile after Vash had shown him the grinning rock and they'd exchanged stories. "He cares about us. He gave you your own rock back, as a sign that he remembered you. I got the message about being forgotten, as a sign that he remembered me... I knew he was my friend, and I think he's yours, too... He knows us and likes us."

"That's impossible," said Vash. "A machine cannot think or feel, let alone know and like somebody. There must be some other explanation. We need to investigate this thoroughly."

And yet that was not what he was thinking. Because how could this possibly be a coincidence? The rock had gone specifically to Vash; the note had gone specifically to Matthew...

"Come on then," said Matthew. "Let's investigate. Let's see if we get another note, or another smiley for that matter..."

But Vash's thoughts were a mess right now. He was too confused to investigate. He'd already been exhausted from having been stuck with Emma, and this extra surprise was just too much. Art class had lasted two periods: it was time for lunch break, and he was in need of fresh air and exercise. So after they'd eaten something, he sent Matthew to investigate the machine on his own, while he went out jogging in the garden.

He felt the rhythm of his legs and the wind blowing in his face and hair. It was a peaceful feeling, and it helped get his thoughts back in control. He didn't think about Emma or the Machine or the stolen cats: in fact, he didn't think about much of anything, he just felt the flow of his movements. He didn't have to block out students' screaming this time: he didn't hear them anyway. He was running inside himself, where he felt comfortable.

"So what's up with you lately?"

He was shocked out of his pleasant meditative state by the sound of this voice, and he almost bumped into Emma, who was standing right in front of his nose with her arms crossed.

"Well?" She was waiting for an answer, but she hadn't asked him a specific question.

"What are you trying to ask me?"

"Just what I said: what's up with you? You've been behaving so differently from last year."

"What... exactly... do you mean?" Could she guess what he'd been doing? And why did it even matter if Emma knew, if she had an alibi and thus could be removed from the list?

But Emma started about something else. "Well, you've been way more social, for one thing. You've been hanging out with Alfred, or with his twin brother: what's-his-name? _Mattieu_!" She said Matthew's name in a singsong voice, with a French accent, then added in her bossy, non-sweet voice: "I can't tell them apart", but immediately after that, she whispered: "They're so easy to tell apart..."

"Why are you contradicting yourself?" Vash asked, but Emma ignored his question and asked him one instead.

"Are they the ones who told you to spy on our meeting?"

"No..." Vash muttered. Why the hell would Matthew - or even Alfred - ask him anything like that?

Emma laughed. "So you _did_ want to join my club after all!"

"I already told you that I was lost," said Vash. He was losing patience with this girl. "You do understand, I hope, that I am a new student and do not yet know the way around this building? Your club is so enormous that I assumed all students were supposed to meet somewhere."

"Then why did what's-his-name sneak into the meeting too? Surely he is not a new student..."

How did she know that?! Could she see Matthew? It didn't seem like it from the way she'd been calling him 'Marney' and 'what's-his-name'... It didn't make sense!

He tried to stay calm. "Why would you think Matthew snuck into the meeting? Did you... see him there?"

"Flanny came up to me asking something on the lines of 'Was Alfred's brother supposed to attend this meeting?' And Wally was like: 'WHAT? _Mattieu_ was here?' And so I knew there was something fishy going on..."

Vash was silent. Those two names again... What was he supposed to say now?

"So what were you planning to do? Sabotage our plans? You weren't here last year: did they tell you what they did?"

Vash furrowed his eyebrows.

" _Someone_ completely wrecked our plans last year, and I don't know who. I would've suspected _you_ , but you weren't at school here yet. If only our plans had succeeded, we wouldn't have to worry about all these financial problems..."

Emma sure was concerned about her club's financial problems... That was why Vash had initially thought she must have stolen the cats: to threaten Herakles into paying off his debts as soon as possible. But if she'd done that, why had she asked the club members for solutions in their debate instead of reassuring them that she'd already found a solution? Moreover, if she'd stolen the cats, she probably would have gotten them back to him by now, since they had only strengthened the financial problems, seeing as Ludwig had used Herakles' loss to excuse him from having to pay them back in the near future. No, Emma hadn't stolen the cats: on the contrary, she would probably only benefit from them being returned to their owner...

"Do you happen to know where Herakles' cats are?" he asked her, just in case.

"What? Herakles' cats?" She looked confused.

"Yes," said Vash. "Wouldn't it be a nice benefit for you if Herakles' cats were found and returned to him? If Herakles had his cats back, he'd be happier, which would make him less likely to spend money on ridiculous things and would make Ludwig less likely to pity him."

"That could be true... But what does that have to do with last year's sabotaged plans and you sneaking into my meeting with your friend?"

"We were not trying to sabotage anything." The only way to keep her from bothering them would be to tell her the truth. He shouldn't let his bias against her affect the results of his project with Matthew: that would mean contradicting his own neutrality. He needed to maintain a neutral attitude, which meant that since Emma was not a suspect and had many connections, she could be of use. Perhaps she knew some crucial information. Perhaps she could help them.

"We were trying to figure out who took Herakles' cats. It's a puzzle that Matthew and I were trying to solve. Most of our suspects are in your club, so we thought we could observe their attitude towards Herakles." There. He had said it. Now she didn't have to bother him anymore about joining her club, or suspect Matthew of conspiracies.

"So who do you think stole them?" Emma asked.

"Elisaveta," said Vash. "She's been behaving very strangely, and I've heard she hates stray animals."

Emma laughed. "Don't be ridiculous! Lizzy's behavior is perfectly normal under the given circumstances, and besides: don't you think Elisaveta is the _last_ person who would ever steal stray cats? Think about it: she hates stray animals! What would she want them for?"

She really did think she was clever. "Well, who do you think stole the cats then?"

Emma looked up into the clouds, thinking. "Probably Ivan. He gets lonely a lot, so he'd want to have some pets..."

That was actually a good point. Wanting to hurt Herakles or to get something out of him was not the only possible motive to steal his cats. Vash had discarded the idea of some other cat lover having stolen them, because he didn't think anyone besides Herakles loved stray cats that much, except for Kiku, who had been the first to calmly comfort him when he'd run into the changing room in frustration. But someone didn't have to specifically love cats to want to have cats. Someone might be lonely and want any sort of pet as company, like Emma had said. Someone might want stray animals for some experiment. Someone might have a problem with mice and need the cats to get rid of them.

But when the bell went, Vash suddenly felt horrified. He hated Emma: why had he told her about their secret plans? Now she would certainly tell all her friends! What the hell had he been thinking: that now that she wasn't the thief, it automatically made her trustworthy?

"Listen," he told her sternly. "You benefit from our research. You're not to tell anyone about the Stolen Cat Case."

"Of course not," said Emma softly. "And I'll make sure B and Wally don't either. We're part of the team now."

Yeah, right. As if he'd ever let Emma into the Wallflower Pact. This was their business, not hers. He marched off to class as fast as possible so that she wouldn't catch up. He should've marched away the moment he bumped into her. He had planned to do something important with Matthew after he was finished jogging, and now there was no more time! Now they'd have to wait another two hours to research the Machine, and to work on the Stolen Cat Case, which they needed to do quickly now before Emma would tell someone...

"Matthew, I just made the stupidest mistake imaginable," he whispered to him once they were in class again, but Matthew clearly had other things on his mind.

"Vash, listen. I spent my break putting random stuff into the machine, and after a while, I got this."

He handed Vash another toilet paper note. It was the same shaky and old-fashioned handwriting. The marker ink had spread again, but the letters were big enough that it wasn't very hard to read.

 _HELP_


	17. Questions and Answers

Vash and Matthew couldn't sit still. They moved back and forth in their chairs, passed each other notes, kept glancing at each other or at the door, and tried to talk to each other without Emma butting in, which was very difficult, since she kept turning backwards towards them. Vash almost got in trouble for talking in class, but at that same moment, Feliks made a very loud noise, so he was sent to the principal instead.

When it was finally time for the 2.50 PM break, Vash and Matthew raced out the door and ran straight to the Machine. They were going to trade immediately, but then they noticed that Emma had followed him.

"You sure like that machine, don't you?" she said to Vash. "And what's-his-name does too? How ironic."

Vash had no time for this nonsense right now. He asked her to leave, but she refused. He wished they could have weapons in school so he could chase her away.

"Why are you even busy with the vending machine?" she asked them. "I thought you were looking for cat thieves."

She made a face, but didn't bother them for too long: Francis came running up to her, yelling, "Wally, come to the garden to sunbathe," followed by something in French. _Wally_? Her name was Emma... But at least she was leaving now, so they could concentrate fully on the Machine and all its peculiarities.

They put rocks, leaves and other useless items into the top door until they received something interesting: another toilet paper note.

 _Help me goddammit!_

Vash and Matthew exchanged looks, but they didn't say anything. Vash was nervous, but Matthew smiled and pulled out a pencil and some scrap paper.

"Let's try this," he said, and wrote: _How can we help you?_

 _I don't know_ , read the next piece of toilet paper, but when Vash inserted another rock, they got a second reply:

 _Nah, just kidding! I don't need any help!_

After another rock, they got a third note, but it was extra hard to read, because the toilet paper was shredded, as if an animal or a small child had gotten overexcited. So the Machine could edit objects after all... But why would it make its notes illegible?

"What does this even say?" Vash asked Matthew.

"It's three words," Matthew answered. "I... am... I don't know what this third word says..."

Vash pointed at one of the letters of the last word. "I think that's a W..."

"W for Wallflower Pact," said Matthew, smiling. Vash put the torn-up note in his pocket.

What were they supposed to do now? Could they just ask directly what they were thinking? Or would the Machine not be able to know whether it was a living thing? It was worth a try... Vash took a deep breath and wrote: _Are you alive?_ He closed his eyes, put the note in the Machine, and when after a short delay, he heard the clicking of the bottom drawer, he was afraid to open it, so Matthew reached his hand in and showed him the answer, written on the back of one of their scrap papers, which made the handwriting easier to read:

 _Of course I am alive!_ _I'm never ever gonna die thanks to insecure poopooheads like Ivan and Roderich!_

"How could insecure people help a machine stay alive?" Vash wondered out loud.

"Poopooheads?" Matthew whispered, looking confused. "And since when is Ivan insecure?"

They tried asking the Machine more questions, but they only got their own rocks and leaves in return, and only once was there a little drawing on it (this one seemed to resemble a broomstick), and when at last, they managed to get another note, all it read was:

 _Can I have a drink? Can I have my rooster back?_

"Let's just leave." Vash felt uncomfortable. This was insane. Impossible. A machine couldn't talk in such a way.

"It sure says strange things..." Matthew was laughing; he seemed at ease. Of course, he had believed the machine to be alive all along, or at least to possess and sense feelings, so it was logical for Matthew to be more surprised by _what_ it was saying, while Vash was shocked that it could talk in the first place.

"Isn't it a bit... disturbing..." Vash muttered, "that a machine can do all this..."

"Don't be silly... You sound just like Elisaveta now... My dad made this thing, and I trust him. Sometimes his magic goes wrong and funny things happen... or scary things... but this is a cool thing: he accidentally brought his own creation to life!"

Matthew's voice, however soft, sounded reasonably reassuring, but Vash frowned nevertheless.

"I don't believe in magic." He thought about an alternative explanation, then stated:

"I got your friendship note from the Machine, remember? A note that you wrote for the machine itself, but because it's not a living thing, it didn't keep it..."

"...or it passed it on to someone who could use the message..." Matthew whispered.

"So what if all the notes we got were things that someone wrote to the Machine: someone who got my toilet paper roll and the permanent marker? ' _Can I have a drink? Can I have my rooster back?'_ would be a request from this student to the Machine to give him these things, and not garbage or money, for example..."

"Must be hard to get something back that you put in there..." Matthew mumbled.

"And the cries for help would be from this person too," Vash continued, "on a time when he was frustrated. Perhaps due to the loss of his rooster."

Matthew bit his lip. "It doesn't make sense, though. I mean, look at the way some of the answers match the questions perfectly! ' _Are you alive?' 'Of course I am alive!'_ No one would write that to a machine. And the way it picks people, too. You got the rock; I got the message. We already went through that."

It was true. This couldn't be pure coincidence. Actually, Vash had already realized this before they'd even started their 'conversation' with the Machine: out of all the possible students, Matthew had gotten the 'forgotten' note, and that was too fitting to be an arbitrary choice... However, not all the notes made as much sense as that one did...

"What about the rooster?" he asked.

"I suppose he just really wants a rooster for some reason... Maybe someone put one inside his door that he got very much attached to, and then he was sad when he had to give it up to someone trading something of equal worth... I guess that means he's also desperate for a drink. Not many people throw their drinks away..."

Matthew rummaged through his bag and pulled out a small bottle of something brown. From the crazy grin on his face, Vash guessed it was some sort of unusually good liquor.

"Don't give that to the Machine," he said sternly. "It's an enormous waste of money, and you never know who will end up with it. We're not even allowed to have alcohol at school."

"It's not alcohol," Matthew whispered, and gently put the bottle into the top door. "I have tons of these, so I can afford to give one up for a dear friend who needs it..."

Of course, a machine would need a drink... What nonsense...

And yet, while watching Matthew wait in suspense, he couldn't help but feel excited. The trading process was taking a bit longer than usual, and Vash was curious what the Machine would think of Matthew's impulsive act. It was a big surprise for him when finally, a sum of money came out of the bottom door, and a lot more than he had expected it to be worth if it was indeed a non-alcoholic drink. Matthew, on the other hand, sulked:

"That's unfair. Maple syrup's worth a lot more than this. Aren't I supposed to get something of equal value?" He shrugged his shoulders and smiled again. "Oh well, I was giving it as a gift anyway..."

There was another note with it, and he read it out loud to Vash:

" _This stuff tastes AWFUL! Thanks, friend: you made my day!_ " He laughed. "Isn't he much ruder than you'd expect from a machine? It's so typical of my dad to make him that way..."

Vash nodded. Part of him was still creeped out by the Machine's talking and wanted to get out of here, but another part of him was fascinated: he wanted to keep going, wanted the Machine to be his friend. Maybe the three of them could be friends. To be honest, he wouldn't mind this at all.

Together, they examined all the notes they'd gotten. The ones written on their scrap paper were the easiest to read; the toilet paper notes were sloppier, but the handwriting was big enough that most of the letters could be deciphered, and the rest could be guessed from the context. Only that one note was too torn up to read. The handwriting was quite unique - Vash wouldn't have expected a machine to write like this - but when he thought about it, it made sense. From what he'd seen of the English teacher Arthur Kirkland, he seemed to take a liking to the "old days", which would explain the old-fashioned character of the Machine's handwriting. The shakiness, on the other hand, was probably caused by the machine's lack of hands and fingers: one couldn't expect a machine that wrote like a human to do this without flaws. He must have trouble holding the marker...

There was one thing, however, that he still didn't understand. Why was some of the toilet paper ripped up? If the Machine wanted to communicate with them, why would he make it harder for them to read his writing by ripping up his own notes? And the way it was ripped looked almost as if...

A little black bug jumped off of one of the pieces of ripped toilet paper they were examining, and Vash mumbled: "Matthew... did you see that?"

He had seen it too. They exchanged glances. The Machine's strange messages had definitely confused them and raised a lot of unresolved questions, but now at least, they knew the answer to one thing: they knew who had the stolen cats.


	18. Rooster

Things were starting to fall in place. First the ripped toilet paper, and now the flea... Finally, Vash and Matthew understood where the seven cats were hidden.

"Should we tell Herakles?" Matthew whispered.

Vash shook his head. "First, we need to figure out exactly what happened. Our theory still needs to be confirmed."

"Our theory?" Matthew laughed softly.

Vash nodded, cleared his throat, and announced: "Our theory states that the Machine itself took the cats. If it is in state to communicate, as we have proven, then this could be a sign that it can also engage in other human activities, such as stealing."

Matthew nodded, but Vash immediately realized there was another possibility, so he added: "Either that, or someone else stole them and traded them to the Machine to avoid being caught."

He took a piece of paper from his notebook and wrote:

 _Do there happen to be seven cats inside of you?_

 _Inside of me?_ The Machine didn't seem to understand.

Matthew tried asking the question in a different way:

 _Any cats in there?_

It worked.

 _Sure thing!_ said the Machine. So they were right about the flea and the ripped paper; now all they had left to do was to find out who the thief was...

 _Did you steal them?_ Vash wrote.

 _Nope! If I could steal, I'd nick something better, believe me!_

 _Do you know how they got there, and who put them there?_ That machine had better get to the point now, thought Vash, but instead he wrote yet another confusing answer:

 _He was trying to help_

Trying to help who? And how would stealing cats help anybody? Vash frowned: why did that machine have to be so vague? Matthew shrugged and scribbled a new note.

 _How do we get the cats back out?_

When he tossed this note inside, the Machine grumbled a little, and out came a rock, but when Vash impatiently threw the rock back in, they received a new note:

 _I'll give you two cats for a warm meal, and the other four if I can have my rooster back!_

That rooster again! What was with that rooster? A warm meal was easy to get, however, so Herakles would get at least two of his cats back... and if they managed to find a rooster somewhere, they could get the rest of them.

Vash wouldn't normally be interested in finding a lost rooster, just like he had never been interested in helping Herakles find his cats in the first place, but if it meant figuring out more about the Machine, or spending more time with Matthew, he would do both of these things. He realized that his reasons for spending time on the Stolen Cat Case had changed entirely. The only reasons he had started this project were the absurdity of the situation (stray cats with fleas generally did not get stolen) and the possibility, however small it was, of getting Emma into trouble. But now, he worked on the case as an activity between friends. It had already been fun to work together with Matthew, but now that there was a link between the cats and the Machine, it would be even better. The Machine no longer freaked him out with his strange talking: he wanted to communicate with him, befriend him. The three of them would be a team. They all enjoyed each other's company. It dawned upon him that Matthew actually resembled the Machine in a way: he wasn't loud, he wasn't spoiled, wasn't ungrateful, nor annoyingly unintelligent, nor overly social, nor lazy, nor obnoxious, nor arrogant, nor overloaded with high expectations... He did have flaws of course, and so did the Machine, but they were flaws that he could bear, and flaws that they could laugh about together. Perhaps real friendship was when you saw each other's flaws and could laugh about them.

"Some kids were just talking about a rooster in art class," said Matthew. "Wondering how it had gotten into the school or something... Shall we go look around if we see anything?"

Vash nodded, though he had no clue where they were supposed to look for a rooster. "I guess so..."

They were just going to head off when Matthew stopped him.

"Something's not right..." he muttered. He looked at the Machine, at the notes, and then at his fingers. "Two plus four equals six..."

That was true, but completely irrelevant. This wasn't math class...

"Two plus four equals six," said Matthew again, showing him the Machine's note:

 _I'll give you two cats for a warm meal, and the other four if I can have my rooster back!_

Where was the seventh cat?

"And something else is fishy too," said Matthew, "but I don't know what. I can't quite grasp..."

Vash waited for Matthew to think, but he just shrugged. Then Vash suddenly remembered something important he had wanted to tell him.  
"Matthew, I did something terrible. I wasn't thinking straight and I accidentally told Emma about our case."

Matthew seemed surprisingly calm, and replied: "Which one?" Which what? Which case? They were only working on one case...

A sudden scream interrupted their thoughts. At first, Vash thought it was Alfred or Feliciano, but when he turned around, he saw Feliks running around, yelling:

"Everybody come look! It's like totally war over there! The two toughest guys in the whole school are fighting! They're totally mad! You have to see this!"

Vash didn't feel the need to see anybody fighting. What was even so special about it: didn't most people at this school fight all the time? That was only another reason not to get involved. But Matthew whispered: "What's going on?", took his hand and tugged him along softly.

It was easy to see where the fight was, since there was a whole crowd of students watching. The fight itself was harder to see, but Matthew pushed through the horde of spectators, pulling Vash along.

"Don't cut in line," Vash whispered. The other students gave him angry glances, and one of them said: "Don't push me." Nobody noticed Matthew.

"This isn't a line," Matthew answered.

When they got to the front, they could see what was happening. Ludwig had his fists clenched, ready to punch Ivan. Ivan was holding a metal pipe.

Vash turned his eyes down: he didn't like when people fought for stupid reasons. He didn't want to be involved in any of this.

But when he looked down to the floor, he saw a rooster standing right there, next to the fighting students. It looked old and worn-out and its feathers were a mess, but it wasn't scared: it just stood and watched. On the other side of the fighting pair was a stray cat.

"Go, Ludwig!"

"Get him, Ivan!"

"Knock that commie down, dude!"

"Ludwig, Ludwig, stop!"

He didn't care what they were saying. He was watching the two animals, both sitting there as if there was nothing strange going on, though they would occasionally move, as if they were watching the fight in suspense. He was struck by surprise at seeing these two missing animals together: was it mere coincidence? The fight, on the other hand, didn't interest him at all, until he heard Ludwig scream:

"NO ONE HURTS MY ROOSTER!"

 _Ludwig_ 's rooster? This rooster belonged to the Machine: that's what he had told him!

"This is what you get for kicking my cat, da?" Ivan's sentence was followed by a crash: his pipe had just missed Ludwig's head and bashed a hole in the wall.

 _Ivan_ 's cat? The stray cats belonged to Herakles! Did that mean he...

When Ludwig's fists and Ivan's pipe started flying at each other again, and some students screamed at them to stop, while even more of them cheered them on, Vash suddenly stepped forward.

" _What the hell are you trying to achieve_?!" he screamed. "Is this a contest of who can be the most immature?" He put one hand on Ludwig's shoulder and the other on Ivan's, trying to calm them down.

"Vash?!" Ludwig was clearly surprised that he, and not some worried friend or peace-lover, had come to stop them.

"Ha-ha, the neutral one has arisen!" Ivan seemed to find him funny, which was probably a good thing, since it meant they were no longer fighting.

He looked at them sternly, as if he was a teacher correcting delinquent elementary school kids, which was pretty much what he felt like he was doing. "Now tell me exactly what happened."

"I was just sitting here happily with my kitty, da?" said Ivan. "And then my cat found something to eat and play with, but then Ludwig comes and what does he do? He kicked my cat! He kicked my sweet kitty!"

Ludwig balled his fists again. "Your 'sweet kitty' deserved it! He was trying to attack-" Here he stopped, and swallowed hard. "He was trying to attack my rooster, Gott verdammt!" He started swearing in German and clenched his fists as if he was going to punch Ivan again. He had a black eye, and Ivan had a red mark on his cheek, probably from Ludwig punching him.

"Listen here, both of you," said Vash, speaking loud and clear. "You both claim you are angry at each other for hurting each other's pets. This sounds at least somewhat reasonable, except for two things. First of all, Ivan, I do not think that is your cat. It looks like a stray cat, which leads me to think that it belongs to Herakles, whose cats, as you know, have disappeared and were probably _stolen_."

Here, Emma, who had also been watching the fight, jumped forward and yelled:

"I _knew_ it! I never trusted you!"

But Ivan looked baffled. "You have it all wrong! This kitty belongs to me! It was a kind gift: I got it from the Machine!"

Of course. Six cats in the Machine didn't have to mean the thief had kept the seventh one for himself: it could also mean that the seventh 'sweet kitty' had already been traded to someone else. Emma gave Vash a look: she didn't know about the Machine, and he didn't really need her to know. He didn't care how curious she was.

"We will show the cat to Herakles, Ivan," said Vash, "and if it is indeed his cat, we will return it to him."

Ivan picked up the cat and held it against him with a sad face. Vash ignored this and continued.

"And second of all: Ludwig, this is not your rooster."

Ludwig suddenly looked horrified. He glared at Vash like he had glared at Herakles that time.

"Then..." He spoke as if the words had trouble coming out of his mouth. "Then who... do you think... I should return it to?"

"The Machine," said Vash. "It belongs to the Machine."

What happened next went so fast that it was hard for Vash to grasp. He felt himself being pulled forward. Then he saw Ludwig's fist in the air. He wanted to defend himself, but something had grabbed hold of him. He heard a girl's voice yell " _Stop it_!" with a French accent. When he fell to the floor, he realized Ludwig hadn't punched him after all and was slowly lowering his muscular arm. Vash hadn't fallen because of Ludwig: he'd fallen because someone had suddenly glomped him from behind. Emma was lying on top of him.

He was going to get mad at her, but she'd already gotten back onto her feet and was facing Ludwig now.

"Don't hurt him," she said softly. "He is my friend."


	19. Three

Vash stood up and brushed off his clothes.

"What the hell?!" What was wrong with Ludwig? What was wrong with _Emma_?

"She stopped Ludwig from punching you," he heard Matthew mumble behind him. "She must really like you..."

But Emma _didn't_ like him! And she knew he knew she didn't like him!

"Now I hope you both realize you were being extremely immature?" She was talking to Ludwig and Ivan.

"Da, I do," said Ivan. "Sometimes I feel just like a small child."

"I think Ivan does not understand," said Ludwig, still sounding tense, as if every word was hurting him. "This rooster is very vulnerable. His cat could have killed him!"

"I didn't know this rooster belonged to Ludwig," said Ivan. "I thought it was just a rooster!"

"It doesn't belong to Ludwig," said Vash. "It belongs to the Machine."

"Now you listen to me," said Ludwig. "That machine will be the last thing to ever have this rooster again. He will stay here with me, where I can take care of him, and I never want to hear you mention that damned machine again." He picked the rooster up, much more gently than Vash would have expected, and turned his back to him.

Vash was going to protest, but Ludwig was already leaving. Part of him wanted to run after him. He looked at Matthew, then at Emma, and then he suddenly realized all the people watching the fight had gone away. Ivan too was walking off in the same direction Ludwig had gone. The only people left behind were Matthew, Emma and himself.

"So the cats are in the Machine, then?" Emma asked.

"How do you know that?!"

"It's obvious, really," Emma said to Vash. "If Ivan got a cat from the vending machine, then that's where the thief put them, right?" She paused and added in a softer tone: "That's what B said: she's the smart one..."

"Who is B?" Vash asked, but Emma ignored him and continued talking.

"So that rules out Elisaveta, since she never uses the machine. You should pay attention which students actually use the thing. I'd almost think _you_ are the most suspicious."

Her bossy expression shifted into a more playful one, and she grabbed Vash's hand.

"We're late for class," she said in a French accent. "Come on, let's run!"

Vash quickly wrenched his hand away from her, but he ran after her nevertheless. He didn't like being late.

They got inside just before the second bell, and the math teacher looked at them disapprovingly. It was their last class and Vash really just wanted it to be over with. He wanted to talk to Matthew and figure out more about what on Earth was going on, but when he sat down on his usual spot, Emma plopped down next to him.

"That is Matthew's spot," he told her.

"Who?" she asked mockingly, but when Matthew looked for a new place to sit, Emma beckoned for him to come over, and she put a chair in between herself and Vash for him to sit on.

"Emma," Vash said with a sigh, "what is it with you? Why are you so desperate for us to be friends? Do you think it's funny to bother me, or do you actually like me for some reason, even though I've made it very clear I dislike you?"

Emma laughed softly. "Depends..."

"Depends on what?" She was being unclear again.

She smiled and looked towards the ceiling. "Well, _Flanny_ thinks you're cute..."

Vash gave her what he hoped was a cold, neutral gaze. He didn't like when Emma rambled on about people he didn't even know instead of actually answering his question.

"Stop teasing..." she said softly, blushing a little and looking at her desk.

"I wasn't teasing anyone," Vash answered. All he'd done was glare at her: since when was that teasing?

"I was just kidding," said Emma. "We like you because you hate _her_." Who was ' _her_ ': Elisaveta? And who was 'we'?

"No! No! No!" Mr. Wang was shouting in a high voice and pointing at someone in the class. His ponytail bounced every time he shouted. Vash thought someone had given a terribly wrong answer to a math problem, but then the teacher added: "No pets here!"

"And yet I'm pretty sure you brought your panda to class once..." Kiku mumbled, while Vash looked around. Herakles's cats were stolen, so who had taken pets into class? He saw that the teacher was pointing at Ludwig, who was still holding the rooster.

"Oh my God, Herakles, Vladimir, Lizzy, Roderich, Milen!" Feliks yelled, pointing the rooster out to all the people who hadn't witnessed the fight. "You wouldn't believe what just happened during break! It was like totally the biggest fight _ever_!"

Vladimir looked interested, but Elisaveta ignored him and made a disgusted face at Ludwig.

"What's wrong with that thing? It looks sick and dirty! I thought you were smart enough not to bring dirty animals in class..."

"Elisaveta..." To the teacher's dismay, Ludwig stood up in the middle of his explanation of differential calculus, and walked to Elisaveta's desk.

"Look at him," he said softly. She looked at the rooster. They were quiet, then she mumbled: "I don't quite understand..."

Gently, Ludwig lifted the shaggy bird up and placed him onto Elisaveta's head.

"Oh, she'll _love_ that," Emma whispered, clearly being sarcastic.

But Elisaveta wasn't disgusted. Instead, her jaw dropped slightly, and her eyes looked shocked. He didn't understand why: it was just a rooster.

"But how..." she whispered. "Where did it come from?"

"Don't waste yourself away," said Ludwig. "I've already tried everything."

"Ludwig: detention!" Mr. Wang pointed towards the door, and Ludwig didn't protest: he left the room. Emma, meanwhile, had moved out of Matthew's seat and was sitting on her usual place again.

"There are three, you know..."

"Three what?" Vash asked. "Three roosters?" He didn't understand what Matthew was talking about.

"No, silly: three of _her_..."

He still didn't know what Matthew meant, but he could ask him that later, since he had a more important question.

"You've known the Machine for a longer time than I have, Matthew... Emma was right about one thing: it is likely that whoever took the cats was someone who would actually use the Machine, and since you're there a lot and no one notices you, you must know exactly who use it the most..."

Matthew thought for a moment, and then said: "Ludwig, definitely Ludwig..."

"What about Roderich?" Vash asked. He vaguely remembered seeing him at the Machine at least once, acting suspicious.

Matthew shook his head. "Maybe, but he only puts food in there, like Ivan..."

They heard the math teacher yell at the class to be quiet, followed by Feliks's loud talking: he was still continuing the story of the fight.

"... and then Vash said the rooster belonged to the Machine, and Ludwig got totally mad!"

Vash frowned. Hadn't Matthew just told him Ludwig was the one who most frequently used the Machine? Then why had he gotten so angry? If Vash remembered it right, he had even called it 'that damned machine'...

While Vash was pondering over this, Elisaveta, who had been uninterested in most of the story, suddenly turned around.

"Wait... what did you say?"

Feliks repeated the end of the story, and Elisaveta looked at Vash accusingly - or did she just look desperate?

"Why did you say that?" she asked him. "What makes you think that machine owns that rooster? Why would you think that?"

Vash hesitated: should he keep it a secret that the Machine could communicate? But perhaps Elisaveta knew of some sort of connection between these things... Perhaps she could clarify something...

"He told me so." Vash spoke clearly, but soft enough that the others wouldn't hear him. "The Machine, I mean. He said he wanted his rooster back."

"His... rooster..." Elisaveta was looking more and more like she was going to burst into tears, or perhaps into a raging fit. "The... Machine? How? Did you hear a voice? Did you... see something?"

"No..." said Vash, unsure what she meant by 'see something'. "I just got a note..."

It was lucky for Elisaveta that class had just ended, otherwise she would have been in trouble. With a horrified scream, she jumped up and raced to the door.

"Let's go after her!" said Matthew, and he tugged Vash along after Elisaveta, who had gone into the hallway and was running straight at the Machine, still screaming as if the Grim Reaper was coming to get her.

She was like a wild animal. She flung herself at the Machine, punched it, kicked it, then started beating it furiously with a frying pan. She wouldn't stop, no matter what Vash did, nor would she stop screaming.

"You'll break the Machine!" Vash yelled, but she didn't care. "You'll get in trouble! It'll stop working! You'll have to pay a fine! You're hurting it!"

What was her problem? How could he get her to stop? If she broke the Machine, they couldn't trade, they couldn't talk to him, nor could they get the cats back...

" _Leave my friend alone_!" Another passionate cry joined Elisaveta's: Matthew suddenly rushed forward and jumped at her. He started punching her with all his might and screaming as loud as he could manage.

"Leave him alone! _Maple_! _Maple_!" It was no use. Elisaveta was fully concentrated on beating up the Machine. She didn't notice Matthew or feel his attempts at fighting.

" _MA - PLE_!" Matthew's face had turned red. He slowly raised his fist, and thrust it at her again, this time harder. Vash could tell by Matthew's face that this was the very hardest he could punch, even though it was still rather soft and he doubted this would actually hurt her. But Elisaveta had at least felt _something_ : she turned around slowly, and blinked.

"Did you just... touch my back?"

Vash shook his head. He hadn't done anything: that was Matthew.

"Take that!" said Matthew, and punched her again, this time much softer, but right in the face.

There was a look of horror in Elisaveta's eyes. She stared at Matthew, or better said, she seemed to stare right through him. She opened her mouth and reached her hand out until it was touching Matthew's face. Her lips moved as if she was whispering, but she didn't make a sound. Then she crossed herself, turned around, and ran away.

When she had left, Vash and Matthew immediately rushed to see if the Machine was okay. Together, they put a rock in the top drawer. Matthew clenched his hands, and Vash patted him on the back, but he was equally nervous. When they heard the familiar ticking and the bottom drawer opened, they both let out a sigh of relief and smiled at each other. Together, they pulled out what they'd gotten in return - another rock - and they laughed. Then they saw that the Machine had made a new drawing on the rock: three smiling stick figures. Vash nodded in agreement: yes, there were three of them now. The Wallflower Pact had a third member, and it was not Emma, no matter how much she meddled into their business: it was their friend, the Exchange Machine.


	20. Imaginary Friends

"So what do you think?" Matthew whispered. They were still sitting at the Machine. "Do you think it was Elisaveta after all? She was acting so strange... But if we look at what Emma said, it can't be her..."

"If we look at what Emma said, it makes Ludwig suspicious," said Vash. "And what's more, he keeps contradicting himself. He was angry at Herakles, but then he defended him in the discussion of his debts. And just now, he clearly expressed a dislike of the Machine, and yet you told me that he was the one who used it most."

Matthew nodded, and hummed softly. Then after a moment's quiet, he added:

"He used to use it even more than now... He'd throw huge amounts of stuff in there, and was never happy with what he got. He made a whole fix every time, too: sometimes, he'd swear, or scream, or throw a tantrum... I even saw him cry a few times..."

So Elisaveta could cry about an ugly painting, and Ludwig could cry about a bad trade... Who would be the next unexpected person to cry: the Machine? Vash wasn't even so surprised anymore. He understood now that people weren't always what they seemed like at first glance.

"Fee-ding time, fee-ding time..." Ivan approached the Machine with a beet in his hand. "Here you go. Very healthy." After he put it inside the top door and received his payment, he smiled and waved at Vash. "Hello, neutral one."

"Hello, Ivan," said Vash, remembering the fight. "Do you still have that cat?"

Ivan reached into his jacket and pulled out a faucet pipe, a big bottle of something, a ball of wool, and finally the cat. "Peekaboo. Here he is."

"Right," said Vash. "We need to return this cat to Herakles."

Herakles wasn't very hard to find, and he was asleep, as usual. When the cat in Ivan's arms noticed him, it meowed, jumped out of Ivan's embrace, and pounced onto Herakles, who woke up, blinking in confusion.

"Wha... Zeus? Olives?" His eyes widened when he saw the cat. "Snatcher!"

So it was Herakles' cat, just like they'd thought. He gave them a moment to reunite, and then explained that Ivan had found the cat, and that he had an idea where to find the others, so they might be returned to him soon. Herakles was very grateful. Ivan looked sad to leave the stray animal, but Herakles said he could come play with his cats whenever he wanted: he had so many at home that they didn't always get enough attention.

Vash didn't feel like socializing any more than necessary, so he and Matthew went to their dorm, where they were going to read and study, but when they came to their dorm room, there was an envelope taped to the door, right under the "Wallflower Pact" sign. It read:

 _For Vash Zwingli and his friend Matthieu_

Vash frowned. " _Matthieu_ ", that was what Emma had called Matthew... They took the envelope inside. Vash sat on his bed, opened the letter, and read it out loud:

 _Dear Vash,_

 _We're sick and tired of B (that's Emma) bossing us around all the time. She's so full of herself that nobody ever seems to notice us anymore. When they think of Emma, all they remember is her popularity club. We've always admired the way you stand up to her, while most students just go along with whatever she's doing. We hate each other, but this is one thing we can agree on._

 _Therefore, we wish to become a part of your Wallflower Pact. You must let us in, because we're unnoticed like Matthieu and besides, we're just too cute and I saved your derrière from Ludwig's fists_ _

Here, the sentence was broken off, and the letter continued in a slightly different handwriting:

 _Sorry for that... Wally got a bit carried away... We would love to belong to the Wallflower Pact, but we understand completely if you don't want us to be a part of it. We know you like to stay away from friends' groups, so we don't expect you to let us in, especially since you seem to find Wally just as annoying as Emma (which I strongly agree with)._

 _Sorry if we're bothering you with this letter._

 _Yours truly,_

 _Wally and Flanny_

Underneath the signature, an extra part was scribbled in the same handwriting as the beginning:

 _PS. You may be confused and not know who we are, so voilà: here is the explanation._

 _B is Emma when she's bossy, manipulative and obsessed with popularity. She thinks she's queen of everything and collects friends as if they were postage stamps: she must have them all._

 _Flanny is Emma when she's modest, shy, polite, and basically a total bore. Like me, she's a bit of a ditz and loves food, but we hate each other. She speaks softer than B or me._

 _Wally (me) is Emma when she's playful and flirty. My voice is sweeter and has more of a melody to it, and I sometimes speak in a French accent._

 _We're three sisters. Flanny and I fight all the time and always have done so. That's why we let B be our leader. We were trying to preserve peace between us, but her leadership has gotten out of hand. That's why we want to be friends with you: so that someone will see us as us, instead of as her._

 _If you try to argue that we are not real, then you're a hypocrite: you hang out with Matthieu, and if we are nothing but a projection of someone's imagination, then so is he._

Vash grunted when he finished the letter. "What kind of nonsense is this?"

But Matthew shook his head. "I told you there were three of her. I know because... well, I sort of knew already, since Wally is related to one of my parents - the French teacher, you know - and her sisters are not, so I'd already heard Francis call her Wally and stuff... But last year, I met Flanny when she came to apologize to me for something."

"Emma apologized to you for something?" said Vash. "That doesn't sound very believable. Emma would never apologize unless she's sucking up to someone, and she would never do that to you, since she can't usually see you to begin with..."

"That's the whole point," said Matthew. "B can't see me. Wally and Flanny can. And both B and Wally would be unlikely to apologize, especially since I didn't even know they'd done anything wrong, whereas Flanny felt bad and went and told me."

"What did she tell you?"

"She kept it kind of vague. She just said the three of them had planned to do something mean to me, and that she had agreed to it because she was jealous of me, but that she'd changed her mind and realized she wasn't capable of doing something like that, nor was she willing to."

"Right..." said Vash. He still didn't believe that one person could in fact be three different people. He also found Flanny's obscure way of apologizing rather stupid: if she was too embarrassed or too secretive to tell Matthew what she had planned to do, then what was the point of apologizing? Besides, why would you even need to apologize for something you hadn't done but had only _thought_ of doing? Didn't everyone sometimes consider doing something bad? It was a crime if you actually did a bad thing, but not if you merely _thought_ about doing it.

"Why was she even jealous of you?" he asked. "I thought nobody outside the Wallflower Pact appreciated you, except perhaps your brother on occasion..."

"It's not about appreciating anything," said Matthew. "Think about it. If I'm fed up with Alfred, I can just leave, right? But if Flanny's sick of Wally, or of B, she can't just leave: she's stuck with them. She's just like I used to be - unnoticed, shy, and not very assertive - and then here I am. I was able to change: I'm still not noticed much, but I'm able to stand up for myself now, and a lot less shy than I used to be, and then I also have the freedom to ditch Alfred and walk away whenever I feel like it. So I'm basically how she wants to be."

"Even if there are three of her," said Vash, "we are not letting her into the Wallflower Pact. We already have our own imaginary friend."

"The Machine isn't imaginary," said Matthew.

"But neither are Flanny and Wally, according to you," said Vash.

"True," said Matthew.

Vash didn't want to be bothered by Emma more than necessary. He put the letter away and went back to business. After they'd both finished their homework for tomorrow, Vash announced a new plan.

"It is almost dinnertime," he said to Matthew. "That means there will be warm meals ready in the kitchen. How about we steal a warm meal and give it to the Machine? Then Herakles will have two more of his cats back."

As it turned out, stealing from the kitchen wasn't very hard, especially with Matthew in the team. While Vash made sure no one was coming, Matthew snuck into the kitchen and came back with a tray full of dinner. He then took a cardboard box from the storage room, "so the food won't spill as much". And sure enough, when they brought the box of dinner to the Machine and put it through the top door, out came two stray cats.

"Now all we have to do is take the rooster from Ludwig," Vash announced.

"And find out who the culprit is..." said Matthew.

Of course: that was the most important. But how on Earth were they supposed to figure this out?

"So Ludwig and Elisaveta are suspicious..." Vash muttered, "but according to Emma, Elisaveta is not an option..."

"Didn't the Machine give us some sort of hint?" asked Matthew.

They looked at all the notes again.

 _He was trying to help_

"He was trying to help," said Matthew. "So it's not a girl..."

"And the Machine knows who did it," said Vash. "Maybe now that we've given him his meal, he'll tell us more."

 _Dear Machine,_ he wrote. _Please tell us who stole the cats._

Vash didn't really expect the Machine to name anyone, since it hadn't done so before, but he was hoping it would at least give away a hint. Its answer, however, was much more specific:

 _Blame Alfred_

Matthew stared, and stuttered:

"B-but that can't be... Alfred would never..." He paused and looked at Vash. "I mean it, Vash: it can't be Alfred. Alfred doesn't really use the Machine... In fact, I don't remember seeing him anywhere near it ever since the time it broke down... Maybe I should ask..." Matthew turned around and left.

But after he was gone, Vash realized that "blame Alfred" could mean two things. If Alfred never came near the Machine, he couldn't be the cat thief. But there was someone else who visited the Machine most of everybody, even more than Ludwig or even Vash himself: someone who could easily get away with stealing, who might be mistaken for Alfred, and who Vash, quite ironically, had completely overlooked...


	21. Writing on the Wall

He needed to think. He needed to go outside, but he realized he was still stuck with two stray cats, so he returned these to Herakles, who was just as overjoyed as the previous time. Vash, on the other hand, was confused. It seemed unlikely that Alfred had put the cats in the Machine, since Matthew had said he never used it. It seemed equally unlikely that the Machine was misleading them, since it had always been friendly with them, especially the last couple days, though it was still a possibility since it had been reluctant and vague in telling them who the culprit was. However, there was a third option, and it bothered him that all along, he had never thought of the slightest possibility of Matthew being the cat thief. He never should have befriended him. He never should have trusted anybody...

Matthew was very quiet at the dinner table. Was he upset that his friend - the Machine - was blaming his brother? Or worse, was he feeling guilty that he himself was to blame? Why the hell had Vash ever decided to trust someone he'd only known for a week or less?

There was still one person whom he knew he could trust. After dinner, he went outside and crossed over to the middle school grounds. They weren't really supposed to leave the campus this late, but Vash didn't care. He didn't think she'd be outside at this hour, especially since it was starting to rain, so he walked straight to the front door of the middle school building. What would he do if it was locked? Wait until tomorrow? But it wasn't locked, and he pushed the door open slowly. He walked down the hallway, not quite knowing where to look. It felt funny to walk around in a school building that resembled his own in so many ways, and yet was not his school and differed clearly from it. There was more art on the walls, but it didn't stand out the way the painting in the high school did: these paintings looked like they were self-portraits that the middle school kids had made in art class. He laughed when he saw a young Matthew: of course, most of his classmates had attended this middle school. Next to Matthew's portrait hung a larger one with three faces: Emma. They looked almost identical, and yet Vash could clearly see the differences in their expressions, in their attitude...

"Are you looking for your sister?" It was Lili's friend Cheng, the Asian guy with the glasses. "She is outside."

So she was out in the rain after all. When Vash went back into the middle school garden, he soon spotted an umbrella, and when he walked towards it, he saw Lili sitting there on a bench with her friend Lucille. They were sitting in quiet, much like he had enjoyed doing with Matthew, and they were sharing the umbrella.

"I'm sorry to disturb your peaceful activity," he told the girls, "but could I talk to Lili in private?"

"Big brother!" Lili smiled, happy to see him as always, and it pleased him to see that she hadn't changed at all. Her friend shook her head softly and muttered: "What a dedicated brother... I guess I'll leave you by yourself then..." She handed Lili the umbrella she'd been holding and went back into the school.

"You've always listened to my advice," Vash told his little sister, "and now I need yours." And he told her everything that had happened: the stolen cats, his friendship with Matthew, Emma's letter, and of course the Machine and its notes.

She didn't look very worried: instead, she smiled. "I'm so happy you have a new friend, Vash."

"Two new friends," Vash corrected.

"Yes." Lili nodded, and hummed softly while she thought. "But you should be careful with that machine..."

"Don't be silly, Lili," said Vash. "You sound like Elisaveta."

Lili laughed. "I just don't like technology so much," she admitted. "But I didn't mean that you shouldn't be friends with it. I only meant that you shouldn't assume it's right all the time. Machines are not perfect. If you look up answers on the Internet, you won't always find them either. I think it's the same for the Exchange Machine. Just because it told you to blame Alfred doesn't mean that Alfred is really the thief, or your friend his brother for that matter..."

"Matthew," said Vash.

"Yes, Matthew," said Lili, nodding. "You can't think he stole some cats just because a machine said his brother did it. But even if he did steal them, would it matter so much? Stealing is not nice, but what if he had a special reason for it? Didn't you just tell me the Machine said something like that?"

Vash nodded. "The first time we asked, he wrote: _He was trying to help_."

"Hm." Lili nodded and continued. "Of course, it still would mean he acted sneaky towards you, and maybe he lied to you, and if those things are true, then he would definitely need to apologize, and you would have the right to be angry at him. But that doesn't mean you would need to put an end to your friendship. It's okay to have arguments with your friends if you solve them well."

Vash listened to his sister's advice, feeling a lot calmer. It was remarkable how wise she could be sometimes, and how clueless at other times (who would even think of making him pink pyjamas?). It was what made her Lili, and he felt comfortable when she acted so much like herself. It was similar to how he felt with Matthew. The Machine gave him a slightly different feeling, but that was good as well. He knew for certain now that Matthew was his friend, and so was the Machine, and so was his sister Lili, and that he did not hate friendship at all.

And Lili was right. Yes, he would be very angry if it turned out Matthew had stolen the cats, and yes, they could still be friends. Vash didn't care about the cats anyway. He would be angry that his friend had deceived him, and he would make sure Matthew understood this, but he would try to keep a neutral attitude and let his friend explain himself and apologize.

"Thank you for listening to me," Vash said to his sister, "and for your good advice. And I'm glad for you too. I'm glad you have new friends, and even though they're probably far from perfect, they seem like decent people, and I trust your judgment." He remembered how Lucille - the girl with the braid and glasses - had been sitting next to her with the umbrella, and he realized he hadn't been very polite to send her away.

"I suggest you go back to your friend now," he told her. "She's probably waiting for you since I interrupted your moment of peace together."

Lili laughed. "Don't be silly, big brother. I'm so happy that you came by. And if you ever need more advice or information, you can always come ask me. I have connections here. Like if you don't understand Emma, maybe I could ask her little brother some things: he is in my class."

"Thank you," said Vash again. He didn't know Emma had a younger brother: he only knew Tim-Govert. He would remember it for the next time he needed an explanation of her behavior.

He returned to his own campus. The high school building looked almost unreal in the dark, and he felt so relieved by his conversation with Lili that it was as if he was walking around in a dream. When he entered the hallway, he remembered the first time he had walked there, carrying his suitcases, and looking at the carpet, the arched windows, and the portraits on the walls...

And there was that horrible modern painting: the first thing that had struck his eye. It still seemed out of place in the midst of the old-fashioned wall, and he found it even stranger now that he'd seen a seemingly tough girl cry over it... at least, if the painting was really what she'd been crying about...

" _I AM A_ ". He'd forgotten about that piece of writing until he noticed it again, but now there was something else about it that made him wonder: he _knew_ this handwriting, old-fashioned, yet carelessly jagged... Even the words looked familiar...

He still had the piece of toilet paper from the Machine: the one they hadn't been able to decipher. " _I AM ..._ " He took it out of his pocket and compared the two. Then, slowly, he stepped towards the painting. He frowned when he touched it. Carefully, he lifted the painting to the side to reveal the end of the sentence, the same one that was written on the toilet paper note:

 _I AM AWESOME_

"Are you aware who wrote this, Vash?" Roderich was standing behind him. Was he aware who had written these words? Yes? No? Maybe, but it didn't make sense? But Roderich had a different answer:

"It was Gilbert Beilschmidt. Ludwig's brother. The boy who went missing."


	22. Long Forgotten

_The boy who went missing_. He vaguely remembered having heard someone mention a missing student at some point, but how could this be his writing? That handwriting belonged to the Machine, not to some boy. He knew it well by now. He'd seen it come out of the Machine, and he knew it wasn't just the writing of some kid who had put the notes in there, because the answers matched the questions and the people asking them. The handwriting was so unusual that it couldn't belong to both the Exchange Machine _and_ the missing boy...

"That is impossible," said Vash. "What are you trying to..."

...unless there was a connection between the two...

"Never mind," Vash stated, taking back his previous words. He hesitated. "So if I get it right... a student named Gilbert Beilschmidt disappeared from the school one day and was never found?"

"Yes," said Roderich. "He went missing last year."

"Was that before or after the Exchange Machine was created?"

Roderich looked at Vash in irritation, as if that was a stupid question. "The Exchange Machine was created months earlier; maybe even another year. I don't see the relevance of..." He suddenly stopped and frowned. The arrogant look faded from his face.

"Yes?" said Vash. This might be important.

"Actually..." Roderich seemed hesitant. "Something slightly odd did happen to the Machine when Gilbert disappeared. I always thought it was just a coincidence, but Elisaveta found it disturbing. She never trusted the Machine after that..."

"What happened?" asked Vash.

"It stopped working," said Roderich. "After Gilbert disappeared, the Machine crashed for about two weeks. It was slightly frustrating, but not a big deal. It worked fine after that. But Elisaveta thought the coincidence was creepy." He shook his head. "Why did I even start talking to _you_ about it? You didn't even know Gilbert. You probably only remember him as one of the kids who used to beat me up when we were younger. Anyway, it's after nine-thirty. We're supposed to be in our dorms, and I'm not risking getting into trouble just to talk to you about the long forgotten events of last year."

When Roderich walked to the dorms, Vash did the same. He expected to find Matthew in their dorm, but he wasn't there. He took out his science notebook to do some homework. When he opened it, he read: _Exchange Machine Calculations_. He laughed: he'd forgotten he'd made these. He'd been so obsessed with the amount of money he could make from trading with the Machine, but his calculations were absolutely ridiculous. The Machine didn't give money often enough for Vash's goal to ever be realized: giving it garbage would usually just result in more garbage, unless you got very lucky. Not that he cared anymore. He was no longer interested in the Machine for financial reasons; he cared more about unraveling its mysteries and befriending it, just like Matthew... At least if those were indeed Matthew's reasons: after the _Blame Alfred_ note, he didn't really know what to believe anymore... It made him think of something Herakles, or one of his people, had once said: _The only thing I know is that I know nothing._

He turned the page of his notebook and started planning out what he would do next. He needed more information on Alfred and Matthew, maybe Herakles too, and of course on the missing student Gilbert Beilschmidt. Lili had said she had connections: perhaps they could help him figure some things out...

The door opened. "Hey..."

"Matthew, we need to talk."

"Sure as hell we do," said Matthew. "I figured something out. You know how I always thought the Machine was my friend? How it comforted me? How it spoke to us?"

Vash nodded.

"Well, guess what? The Machine's not alive. It was someone else all along..."

"What do you mean? I thought we proved long ago that the notes couldn't be a coincidence..."

"Look at the notes, Vash." Matthew waved one of the pieces of toilet paper around as he spoke. "Look at the one where we asked whether there were cats inside him. He didn't get it! Not until we changed it to 'in there'. He didn't get it because there _were no cats inside of him_. I asked him just now. Take a look."

He pulled out a note he'd written, and the response he'd received:

 _Dear friend who understands me and sends me messages,_

 _Are you the Exchange Machine?_

 _Love,_

 _Matthew Williams_

 _No way in hell! That horrid thing is my confinement!_

"Of course..." Vash muttered. That certainly explained something...

"So there's someone inside the Machine," said Matthew. "A _person_."

"Gilbert Beilschmidt," said Vash.

"Who?" It seemed ironic to hear Matthew ask 'who'.

"Gilbert Beilschmidt," said Vash. "That's a student who went missing last year. Don't you remember that? You were at school here after all: you must have heard _something_... But I guess he wasn't in your class."

Matthew shrugged. "I vaguely remember Francis saying something about some Gilbert... so I guess that's the guy..."

"You don't remember that someone went missing?"

"Maybe a little bit..."

It appeared that Matthew knew next to nothing about Gilbert's disappearance. Perhaps it was more important right now to talk about the other thing that had been bothering him. Vash knew he had to bring this up at some point, so he might as well mention it now. "Matthew, did you steal the cats?"

"Eh?!" Matthew blinked.

"Did you steal Herakles' cats and put them in the Machine?"

"No!" Matthew's face was flustered with surprise. "Why the heck would you even think that?!"

"Why else would the Machine, or Gilbert - I guess it's Gilbert -, tell us to blame Alfred when Alfred never comes near the Machine?"

"Huh?" Matthew didn't understand at first, but Vash let him think about it. After a moment of quiet, he nodded softly. "So you think that I stole Herakles' cats and put them in the machine, and that Gilbert thought I was Alfred because we look alike... And then when you asked me to help you on the case, I thought: 'what a nice coincidence is this, eh'! Is that what you think? That I'm only helping you with this case because that way you'd never suspect me?" Vash was surprised at Matthew's calm tone - he was almost laughing - and the reassuring voice in which he continued: "Well, I'll tell you why I'm helping you: it's 'cause I'm so happy you notice me. That's all."

Vash sighed in relief, even though he couldn't possibly know whether Matthew was telling the truth. "So what do you think happened?"

"Well, for starters, I don't think that Gilbert guy can mix us up, 'cause I don't think he can see much of us. Think about it: he's inside the Machine. If he can distinguish different people, it wouldn't be by their faces. It would be by their hands that they stick in the top drawer, and the kind of stuff they put in there, and maybe their footsteps if he can hear those." He looked at the ceiling, and then at the wall with the forget-me-not still taped to it. "As for the culprit..." He sighed. "I don't wanna admit it, but I think it really was my brother. I went and asked him today: I told him about the Machine's note. I didn't realize it was a person writing the notes until right before you came, so I didn't tell him that part, but I told him about _Blame Alfred_. You know what he said? He didn't say 'I didn't steal the cats', or 'that's stupid', or 'why would you believe what a machine says', or 'what the hell, how can a machine even talk'. Instead, he told me to stay away from that machine from now on. And I don't think he's afraid of the thing like Elisaveta is. Alfred loves machines: he watches TV all day, and surfs the Internet..."

Vash frowned. "I thought you told me he never came anywhere near the Machine. That sounds like fear to me..."

"You're right that it's weird..." Matthew mumbled. "But what if that's the whole point? Doesn't that give him the best cover? I think he's telling us to stay away so we don't find out his little secret!"

"What about this, though," Vash added, remembering his encounter with Matthew's brother in the hallway. "I came across Alfred and Herakles in a very strange situation yesterday, where it looked like Alfred was threatening Herakles, and when I confronted Alfred with it, he seemed all nervous, but then when I asked him about the cats, he started laughing. He actually fell on the floor with a laughing fit. He kept on saying: 'You thought I stole the cats! You thought I stole the cats!'"

"Oh, no..." Matthew whispered.

"What?" asked Vash. "Doesn't that make it pretty clear that Alfred didn't do it?"

"No..." Matthew shook his head with a bitter expression on his face. "It makes it pretty damn clear that Alfred's done something even worse..."


	23. Information

But they didn't have time to discuss what kind of thing Alfred could have done that was worse than stealing cats, because a knock came on the door. It wasn't anyone interesting. It was the janitor telling them it was bedtime and that if they didn't stop making noise, they would be in big trouble. They didn't protest.

Normally, Vash would have trouble falling asleep with all these questions racing in his mind, but tonight, he had it all under control. Instead of staying awake pondering, he made sure he got a good night's rest so that he was fit to investigate the next day.

It was a Thursday. It had rained the whole night, and it was still damp outside. During breakfast, Vash planned his day. During class, he wrote a list of questions he wanted to find the answer to:

 _1\. Who put the cats in the Machine and why?_

 _2\. What did Alfred do that was worse than stealing cats?_

 _3\. Why did Gilbert Beilschmidt tell us to blame Alfred for stealing the cats if he didn't do it?_

 _4\. How did Gilbert Beilschmidt get inside the Exchange Machine?_

 _5\. How can we get him out?_

He felt like adding two more questions to the list: what was going on with Emma and her personalities, and what should he do about them wanting to join the Wallflower Pact? But these didn't seem to be related to any of the mysteries, so he didn't think they belonged on the list.

He waited until break, and then crossed over the school garden into the middle school grounds. He didn't take Matthew along.

"She's over there," said Cheng, "but wait your turn. She's preoccupied with important matters."

He followed the boy's directions, and ended up upstairs, probably somewhere near the middle school dorms. Lili and Lucille were sitting there, each on one side of the scared-looking boy called Raivis. Lili was holding his hand. Lucille was patting his shoulder. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but it didn't make a difference what it was about. It was about the gesture: the two girls were helping their friend in need, like Vash and Matthew were doing for Gilbert. He didn't make an effort to be noticed. Instead, he patiently waited until his sister was finished. He waited a couple minutes longer than that, so that they had some time to sit in silence and think about nothing. Then he went up to her.

"Lili, how about that information?"

That was all he had to say. She understood.

"Next break is lunch break," she replied. "Lunch break is longer, so more time to investigate. I'll make sure to have our experts ready."

She saluted him, and he returned the gesture.

And so at lunchtime, he found himself surrounded by middle schoolers.

"Raivis knows most Eastern European students pretty well," Lili told him, explaining in what way each student could be of help. "Lucille knows everyone who's ever been involved with her brother in any way, which is a lot of people." Lucille rolled her eyes at this comment. "Besides being acquainted with several of the Asian high school students and of course the math teacher, Cheng also knows most students' financial records."

"And who is he?" Vash asked, nodding at the fifth middle schooler. He hadn't seen this blonde guy with the long bangs before, and the way he held himself reminded him too much of Roderich, though the big dog lying next to him told him they couldn't be that much alike.

"Jerome is not exactly in our friends' group," Lili explained, "since he hangs out mostly with the high school students. But he has more connections with them than anyone else here: I'm certain he'll make a very important source of information. He also hears all the gossip, since he's Emma's little brother."

When Jerome waved at him, he no longer reminded Vash of Roderich at all. He reminded him more of Wally, perhaps with a bit of Flanny and Tim-Govert mixed in.

"Alright," said Vash. "I suppose I'll have to blindly trust these people. It's not something I generally do, and I am not about to tell any of you what I need the information for. Does anyone find this suspicious and wonder whether I'll use it for criminal ends?"

Raivis looked frightened. Cheng shrugged as if to say: _It may be strange, but I honestly don't care so much_. Jerome just smiled. Only Lucille raised her hand. "I do."

Vash nodded at her in approval. "Then you are smart. Why did you even agree to do this?"

"I trust Lili," she answered.

Vash nodded again. "Then you know Lili well. She is a trustworthy person."

He looked around at the five middle schoolers again and cleared his throat. He hadn't had a group conversation in a very long time. It felt awkward. How the hell was he supposed to look all of them in the eye at the same time?

"I, um, alright." He was usually so sure of himself, but this unusual situation was already confusing him. "I need information on Alfred F. Jones, Matthew Williams, Gilbert Beilschmidt, and the Exchange Machine. Perhaps Herakles Karpusi, as well. Perhaps others too. But this is it for now."

"Well, I've already got a lot to-" Jerome started speaking, but was interrupted by Cheng.

"One item at a time might be easier."

"Oh, alright." Jerome blinked. "Herakles first then? Emma's been complaining about him frequently these days. He seems to have a lot of debts... Some think it's because he spends all his money on his cats; others think he's not organized enough. Unrelated to that, there are some odd rumors going on about him. They say he sleeps in the day because he spends the night sword fighting and working out. They say he stays back every year because he writes such cryptic answers to test questions that the teachers do not understand what he is trying to say. They also say he has dreams about the past and the future: apparently, the day before the gym teacher got fired, he whispered 'Bye-bye, Antonio' in his sleep..."

"Right..." said Vash, trying to take notes as Emma's little brother chattered on. This was clearly getting off-topic. "Does anyone else have anything unusual to say about Herakles?"

Cheng confirmed Herakles's money problems. Raivis seemed to find it a very frightening idea that he had an entire army of cats. Lili and Lucille had nothing to add.

"What about Alfred F. Jones?"

"Talks too much," said Lucille.

"Scary!" said Raivis, but when Vash asked for what reason, he had no answer. He appeared to find a lot of things scary.

"It's hard to believe with that goofy grin of his," said Jerome, "and he seems truly happy most of the time, but they say he gets melancholy from little things like cleaning out his storage room. He prefers to live here and now, and not to think too much. I also heard he's had some friendship troubles. People wonder whether he has commitment issues..."

More irrelevant blabber. Vash sighed.

"He got very rich all of a sudden last year," said Cheng. "Nobody understood why. He spends so much money..."

"Criminal activities?" Vash asked, remembering Alfred's threatening behavior towards Herakles. "Illegal trading?" But hadn't their conversation been related to Herakles's dreams?

"No way," said Jerome. "We would've known. There's twenty-eight of us now, with Lucija newly admitted, and we already had almost that amount last year. _Someone_ would've known."

"Gambling, perhaps?"

Cheng and Lucille exchanged glances. They spoke at the same time: "Haven't seen him at my place." Then they laughed at some sort of inside joke.

There seemed to be nothing more to say about Alfred, so Vash went on to the next subject:

"Matthew Williams?"

Everyone was quiet. Raivis blinked in confusion. Cheng's expression seemed blank. Jerome hesitated, as if he was trying to remember something, but then he shook his head. Finally, Lucille spoke:

"Is this a student? I think I have some distant family member named Matthieu, but I didn't think he went to school here..."

Vash grunted. He could've seen this coming. "Never mind, on to the next. Gilbert Beilschmidt?"

"Never heard that name, either," said Cheng. Jerome bit his lip and said: "Huh."

"He went missing, am I right?" Lucille asked. "He's probably... passed away. He didn't keep very well... My brother knew him. They were enemies, but a mutual friend helped them get along at least a little bit. I think he came to visit once, but I don't really remember him..."

After having thought for a moment, Raivis suddenly gasped. "I remember him! Isn't he that white-haired kid? He used to live next door and play with me, but he had a huuuuuge ego! He couldn't stop talking about how awesome he was!"

"Thank you for the information," said Vash, though he didn't see how any of this was going to be very helpful. "What about the Exchange Machine?"

"It's a vending machine in the high school hallway," Cheng began in a monotonous voice. "Inserting anything into the machine will result in receiving an object of approximately equal value-"

"I know _that_ ," Vash interrupted. "I'm asking whether you know anything unusual about the Machine. Things it can do besides trading? Glitches? Rumors?"

"I think there was a glitch last year..." Lucille said hesitantly.

"I know that too," said Vash. "Do you have any idea how this could have happened? Why it happened at precisely that time?"

Lucille shrugged. "We don't really know much about the high school materials... We only know some of the students."

Jerome, who had been so talkative in the beginning of this interview, had grown completely quiet now, and was chewing on his fingernails. He looked like he was trying to solve a very difficult puzzle.

"Does anyone have anything to add before I head off to class?" He was looking straight at Jerome, but someone else answered.

"Me! I can help!"

Vash turned around to see a little boy looking at him intently. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, the same eyebrows as the three Kirkland teachers, and looked like he should be in elementary school, though he was wearing a middle school uniform. Vash recognized him from Emma's club meeting, where he had snuck in for the opposite reason Vash had: he'd wanted to join her club.

He looked down at the boy skeptically. "And what do you think you can help me with, young man?"

The boy grinned. "The Exchange Machine, of course! Having sold myself on eBay, I know _everything_ about technology! And besides, my biological daddy is Arthur Kirkland, the Exchange Machine's brilliant inventor! Though he's rather incompatible compared to me..." He probably meant _incompetent_.

"Then tell me this," said Vash, still doubting the knowledge of this child who was clearly trying to impress him and failing. "What would happen if a _person_ ended up inside the Machine?"

"A person?! Why, that would result in very odd stuff! A human life has infinite value, you know! There'd be no way to get him out!" He paused and thought for a moment, then jabbed his finger into the air in excitement. "Unless!" He paused again, this time clearly attempting to be dramatic, and his annoyingly high-pitched voice grew more serious. "Unless... you'd put another person inside..."


	24. Unforgotten

_A human life has infinite value, you know._ According to "The Independent Peter Kirkland Oxenstierna", as the boy had introduced himself right before Vash left them to go to class, this meant that the only way to get a person out was to put another person in, because this was the only possible equal trade. But then what would happen if a person went inside before there were any other people in the Machine? A glitch? _It stopped working_ , Roderich had said...

Vash had just sat through geography class, staring blankly at the map, and taking some notes of what the teacher was saying so that he could study it all later when some space had been cleared in his mind for more information. Now, in English class, all he could think was: _This is the man who invented the Machine._

He had stayed reasonably calm until this moment, but now an uncomfortable feeling had knotted itself into his stomach. The Machine, who he had thought was his friend, was just a lifeless object. His actual friend, Gilbert Beilschmidt, was stuck in the Machine with no way to get out, unless someone sacrificed himself... How did Gilbert get in there in the first place? Should he ask Arthur Kirkland some questions, seeing as he probably knew the most about the Exchange Machine?

But Mr. Kirkland had just left the classroom (most likely going to the bathroom), which was not the most sensible thing to do with a class like this one: there were already students talking and running around the classroom. It was only the fourth day of school, but Vash was already accustomed to blocking out the insignificant blabber about types of food, "cute" animals, the need for exercise, dead people...

 _Dead people_? Now that was a topic he didn't hear often in class. He looked around, trying to figure out where that conversation was coming from.

"The past perfect, or: how to burn your grammar as well as your food," said someone, pretending to quote his textbook. Not that conversation...

"Please..." Yes, there it was. "Please tell me, Vladimir..." He could barely hear the soft speaking through all the other students' yelling. "Tell me how to bring the dead back to life..."

He found the source of the voice. It was Elisaveta.

"Matthew..." he whispered. "Don't those two hate each other?"

He didn't even have to ask this question, because at that moment, Vladimir laughed:

"Why are you asking me? You _hate_ me! And I hate you!"

"You just... seem to know a lot about the afterlife... or so you claim..."

Vladimir laughed again. "Wanna meet up with the Black Magic club in recess?"

Vash glanced at Matthew. "Who does Elisaveta want to bring back from the dead?"

"Someone's parents?" Matthew guessed. "Or Gilbert Beilschmidt?"

"He's not dead, though..."

"Hmm..."

He went right up to the English teacher when the bell went.

"Mr. Kirkland," he asked, "is there a way to turn off the Exchange Machine and open it?"

"Goodness no!" the teacher explained. "Alistair and I did our best to make it practically perfect in every way! It's beautiful, ever working, unstoppable, unbreakable!"

What about the glitch then? Clearly it wasn't as unbreakable as Mr. Kirkland claimed...

"Breaking or opening the Machine against its rules is impossible! Isn't it bloody brilliant?"

Vash ignored the teacher's praise of himself and asked a new question, the same one he'd asked Peter. "What would happen if a person ended up inside the Machine?"

"A _human being_?!" He was shocked, but thought about it. "A human has the biggest value of all..." That was what Peter had said... "So that means _everything_ would come out! Everything anyone ever put in would all come out at once! That's what would happen, all right! It would be bloody marvelous to witness!"

"And how would you get him back out? Could you open the Machine somehow? Or reach inside?"

"Oh, no, none of that!" Mr. Kirkland shook his head. "There'd be only one way..." The same way Peter had mentioned... " _Sacrifice_!"

He'd had enough of this. He beckoned Matthew to come along and they went to the Machine.

"Poor Gilbert," said Matthew. "To be stuck in there for almost a year, and god knows how much longer it'll be... Let's give him some attention. We haven't talked to him at all today yet..."

"You haven't? What have you been doing?" Vash had supposed Matthew would be with the Machine while he'd been in the middle school building.

"Trying to talk to Alfred," Matthew explained. "But he won't tell me a thing. He said some stuff just shouldn't be talked about. It's so stupid... It's not like I'd start hating him if he told me whatever crap he's been up to..."

Vash sighed. What on Earth would he do if his sister had done something horrible? He didn't know how he would react...

"Let's go comfort Gilbert," said Matthew. He grabbed a pen and paper and wrote:

 _Hey Gilbert,_

 _Hang on in there!_

Vash nodded, remembering how Lili had comforted Raivis. They could do that too: be there for each other. He gave the Machine a pat, though he doubted Gilbert would feel it, and added to the note:

 _You are now unforgotten._

"We still need to get him his rooster back..." Matthew mumbled.

"We need to get him out," said Vash. "We don't need to go steal a rooster from Ludwig if we're planning on freeing Gilbert anyway. We can give him his rooster after he's released."

"How do we get him out, though?" asked Matthew.

Vash was silent. Was there really only that one way? They put their comfort note in, and out came a reply:

 _You remember my name! Thanks, admirers!_

 _And please refer to me from now on as The Awesome Me!_

Vash shrugged. Matthew laughed.

"You know, Vash... I've been thinking... So the Machine's not alive, eh? But it's not his fault that Gilbert is trapped, right?"

"I wouldn't think so," Vash mumbled.

"So maybe we can still be friends with the Machine. There's nothing wrong with being friends with an inanimate object: I heard one of the freshmen has a refrigerator as a friend, so we can have the Machine... It helped us, after all... It helped Gilbert get in touch with us. It could've just traded normally and not let Gilbert interfere..."

"Hey!" Vash turned around to see Emma's little brother waving at him, this time without his dog.

"What are you doing on high school campus?"

"Looking for you," said Jerome. "I needed to tell you..." He looked around in surprise and interrupted himself. "Do you always sit alone during break?"

Vash looked at Matthew and raised an eyebrow. "Alone?"

"Yes. Well, it figures, from what Emma's told me..."

"So what did you want to tell me?"

"There was this guy... When the Exchange Machine was still new, Tim-Govert got this idea: a way to make money. It was a very bad idea, but he couldn't let go of it... He was always obsessed with money, and this thought was haunting him, and then Emma came up with a plan..."


	25. Something Worse

Jerome stopped. "I shouldn't really be telling you this. It was a secret plan between Emma, Tim, Ludwig and me. Even Francis wasn't allowed to know: I think he knew the person involved or something... But since the plan didn't work out, I guess it's not _that_ secret... I don't know... I just thought it was an odd coincidence that you saw a link between the Machine and those names you mentioned, so perhaps it was not coincidental..."

"Those names I mentioned?"

"Gilbert something? And Matthias... No, that's the high school gym teacher. But it was something like that..."

"Matthew?"

"Yes."

Vash and Matthew looked at each other, not knowing what to expect. Jerome was going to talk about Matthew without even knowing that he was right there next to them.

"It was stupid," Jerome continued. "We wanted to do something stupid. We couldn't have actually done it, though: it was more of a fantasy..." He shook his head. "No, B could've done it. I think she would've done it, and we would've all died of guilt. But we were lucky and someone was there before us..."

"If you tell me a secret," Vash interrupted, "at least tell it to me clearly."

Jerome hesitated. "It... It has nothing to do with me: you understand that, right? It was Emma's plan: no, it was _B_ 's plan, and the rest of us just went along with it... It's hard _not_ to go along with stuff B says. She brought all of our wishes into it, too: Tim wanted money, Ludwig did as well, Flanny and Wally wanted recognition, and I... I don't even know what I wanted, but she usually has such good ideas and I always agree with them and suddenly she's here proposing this plan and I'm not very good with peer pressure and I'm just like Flanny in that way and it was somehow very tempting to do this simple thing to get so rich and... Here I am, making up excuses. I agreed: that's bad enough. It doesn't matter for what reason..."

"What was the plan?" Vash was getting impatient. This boy kept trailing off topic. If he was already so easily carried away by his own words, he could quite imagine him being easily manipulated by those of others.

"You won't tell anyone, right?"

Easily manipulated, huh? If Jerome didn't mind Emma's sneaky tactics, surely he wouldn't mind if Vash used them on him now... He remembered seeing Emma use rhetorical questions several times: she had used them on him when he'd snuck into her club meeting, and if he remembered right, she might have used them in music class when she helped remove Ivan's little sister from the classroom. He could give it a try...

"Do you really think so, Jerome?" This actually sounded like something Emma would say. Vash almost had to laugh, but he kept a serious look on his face as he added: "You do realize that I am entirely neutral, without exceptions?" Except that there _were_ exceptions...

Jerome nodded quickly. "Yes, of course..." He couldn't believe that Emma's little brother of all people was so gullible. Whenever she had lies to tell, she probably fed them to him from the tablecloth. "And you don't have any friends, so there's no one you'd tell anyway."

"Mm," said Vash.

"So what we were doing..." Jerome continued. "I don't even remember it so well. There was this guy who had no friends and Emma was annoyed that we kept having to delay the plan because we kept forgetting..."

"And I'm guessing the guy with no friends was called Matthew? Or was it Gilbert?"

"Something like that... Not Gilbert: it was something like Math..."

"And what were you planning to do to Matthew?" Vash asked, glancing sideways at Matthew. He remembered what he'd told him about Emma: _I met Flanny when she came to apologize for something_. Something she'd planned to do, but hadn't. Something mean...

"So Tim had this idea about how we could easily get extremely rich, and it haunted him, and so Emma thought we could do it in a safe way that wouldn't harm many people... since no one would notice if he was missing..."

That wasn't an answer. "What were you planning to do?!"

"We were planning... to put Matthew in the Machine."

"You were _what_?!" Vash jumped forward and grabbed hold of Jerome's shoulders. He couldn't believe it. He knew Emma was conceited, but that it would go this far... How could anyone, _anyone_ , consider locking someone up for the rest of their life, and claim this is okay because the person in question wouldn't be missed anyway? Even from a politically neutral point of view, this was completely sick.

"Vash, calm down..." Matthew whispered, but his voice was so soft that he barely registered the words.

"What were you thinking?" he shouted, shoving Jerome against the wall. "Friendless people don't matter? Friendless people don't mind if you leave them to _die_?!"

Jerome was looking very scared. "I... I already said it was a terrible thing to think of... and I don't think he would've died, for several reasons... and we all feel really bad for having thought of doing that..."

Vash took a step back. Perhaps he was taking this a little too far. He had all the right to be disgusted by that idea they'd had, but it was clear that most of them strongly regretted this plan, judging by Jerome's reaction and Flanny's earlier apology that Matthew had told him about. Hadn't he thought only yesterday that it didn't matter what people thought about as long as they didn't act on it? No, the disturbing part hadn't been their idea to make Matthew disappear (Vash was certain that he too, at some point, had wished someone would disappear, or fantasized about getting rich through some sort of crime). The disturbing part was how Emma - how _B_ \- had made a plan for this to actually happen, and had manipulated her friends and siblings into helping her and even believing it was okay to do this. His instinct to hate Emma had been right after all, or was it only B who was so coldhearted?

"Can I ask you something?"

Jerome nodded, still looking worried from Vash's previous outburst.

"It's about your sister. Does she have some sort of mental illness? She seems to believe she is three different people..."

The worry faded from the boy's face and he laughed. "Wrong! I don't have a sister who thinks she's three people. I have three sisters stuck in the same body. There are some people here at school who suffer from mental illness, but Emma isn't one of them. What Emma has is something different."

Vash didn't see what this would change. "Isn't that just a different way to look at it? From a psychologist's point of view, she has a mental disorder, whereas from her own point of view, she is three different people stuck in one body?"

"No," said Jerome. "Flanny, Wally and B are _literally_ three different people. There's even a possibility that they could split apart into separate bodies. This actually happened to one of the high school first years: ever heard of Yong Soo Im and his brother?"

Vash shrugged. He knew he'd probably heard the name somewhere, but it didn't ring a bell.

"How can three people even share one body in the first place? That's not physically possible."

"It's a simple reason," Jerome explained. "Same reason you speak all those languages. Same reason Feliciano loves pasta, and Elisaveta and Vladimir hate each other. I guess you don't know much about the world. Maybe you should fix up your geography and look at a map."

As if Jerome knew so much about everything. "Well, it looked to me like she was delusional."

"Well," said Jerome, "things aren't always what they look like. Just like how Mr. Oxenstierna is a lot happier than his permanent glare lets on," - and there he was trailing away again - "or how Roderich doesn't have an eating disorder..."

"An eating disorder?" What the hell was Jerome even talking about?

"You haven't noticed how he worries about his weight?"

Vash grunted. Why would he pay attention to someone he had no interest in anymore?

"He keeps saying he needs a diet, even though he doesn't look fat," Jerome continued, "and Tim-Govert told me he often locks himself in the toilet to change into his gym clothes, and Emma told me he throws his lunch into the Machine every day. So anyone with common sense would figure out that he throws away his lunch because he's trying to lose weight. Except this isn't true. Roderich may be worried about his weight, and there are rumors he wears a corset to appear thinner, which would explain his changing in private, but he's not actually dieting."

"Then why does he throw his lunch in the Machine?"

Jerome laughed. "He simply finds the school lunches so appalling that he can't eat them without throwing up. So he throws them out and goes to the nearby town to buy himself something better, and he acts very sneaky about it because he feels pathetic for not being able to eat the food. I admit I was tempted to throw my lunch away the first time I tasted that awful food. You'd almost think they make Arthur Kirkland cook."

What had the Machine said about Roderich again? Vash rummaged through his pockets until he found the right note:

 _I'm never ever gonna die thanks to insecure poopooheads like Ivan and Roderich!_

That was what Ivan and Roderich had in common. Insecure or not, and whatever their reasons were, both of them put _food and beverages_ into the Exchange Machine. Both of them, without knowing it, kept Gilbert Beilschmidt alive.

Remembering that Matthew was still there, Vash looked over at him. He was crying. And however often Vash had wished for an invisibility like Matthew's, he completely understood that _anyone_ would be upset if someone had seriously considered getting rid of them and claimed this wouldn't make a difference to the world. He knew that Jerome wasn't responsible for this, but he couldn't help feeling angry at him nevertheless.

"You know what, Jerome?" Vash spoke up. "I may not know much about your family, but you don't know much about us either. Matthew happens to be my _friend_. And he's standing right here next to us. Maybe you should get some glasses, or clip those bangs of yours, since you clearly can't see further than your own nose."

"Oh... Ehm... Sorry..." Jerome stammered, heading back towards the door.

"Thank you for the information, though," Vash added. "Most of it was very useful."

Poor Jerome probably already regretted having told Vash these things, but that didn't matter to him. He went to his friend and patted his shoulder, like he'd done to the Machine. Then Matthew pulled him into a tight hug, and instead of being annoyed about this like he normally would, Vash hugged him back and mumbled:

"You're unforgotten too..."

"Wait!" Perhaps Jerome didn't regret anything after all. He suddenly ran back to them, yelling: "I forgot to tell you why our plan didn't work!"

Vash sighed and stepped out of Matthew's hug to turn to Emma's little brother again. "Why didn't your plan work? Did you forget about Matthew?"

"No..." said Jerome hesitantly. "Well, yes, at first, so we kept delaying it because we kept forgetting... But then suddenly, the Machine stopped working. And this Gilbert guy was gone, and we thought... someone else must have stolen our plan..."

Matthew blinked and wiped the tears from his face. Then they exchanged uncomfortable glances. The worst part was, they already had an idea who this someone could be...


	26. Forget-Me-Not

_He got very rich all of a sudden last year. Nobody understood why. He spends so much money..._

They stared at each other for a second. Then Vash turned back to where Jerome had been standing, but he'd already ran off to wherever he was supposed to be. Maybe they should've given him a proper thank you after all: he'd given them very helpful information without asking for anything in return...

"We need to talk to him," said Matthew, and he didn't mean Jerome.

Sitting in class was awkward. Emma sat right in front of them and it was strange to see her act as if nothing had changed after they knew so much more about her, and what she - no, what _B_ \- had planned to do. Interestingly enough, the three Emma's were a lot easier to distinguish now that Vash paid attention to them: he saw Wally giggle with Feliks while Flanny was trying to have a calm conversation with Tim-Govert, and when the teacher asked a question, B raised her hand, while Wally gave Feliks a look that made it clear that _she_ , unlike her sister, had no clue what the answer could be.

Matthew, meanwhile, kept muttering to himself in disbelief. "How _could_ he? How could _he_ , of all people, let someone be forgotten? Didn't he realize how much he could make Gilbert suffer like this? He knows this isn't just some trivial thing. He's seen it happen to me... He's felt it himself before..."

"We will ask him after class," said Vash. "We can't judge before we know the details. Perhaps it wasn't even him. Or perhaps Gilbert did something nasty to him and it was completely justified."

Even more awkward than Emma's presence was the fact that during Vash and Matthew's serious contemplation, Alfred was laughing and shouting as if he didn't have a care in the world. The geography teacher couldn't keep order and she was almost crying from all the chaos. Alfred waved at her, yelling: "Don't cry, Katyusha! You're an amazing person like everybody else! Don't let the students get you down!" It was ridiculous for him to give her this pep talk when he himself was one of the reasons she was on the verge of tears. "This hero will save your..."

He stopped. He'd caught Matthew's eye. His mouth opened slightly, as if he was going to pronounce the letter F, but Vash couldn't hear him speak: in that moment, his voice was softer than Matthew's.

They didn't even have to ask him to come. Immediately after class was over, Alfred followed them to their lunch spot next to the Machine.

"I tried to warn you, Mattie!"

"For what?" said Matthew darkly. "That you're an asshole? That you're a hypocrite?"

"Calm down," said Vash, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Let him explain."

"I... I..." Alfred stuttered. "Wait, how much do you know?"

"Everything," said Matthew.

"We know what you did," said Vash, "and it wasn't stealing cats."

Alfred was still looking at Matthew. "Everything? Like what I did and that I'm a jerk? You're right there: I'm a big-time asshole. But do you know about Emma?" Vash was tempted to ask: _Which one?_

"About B, you mean? That she wanted to make me disappear in exchange for money that she could use for her club? Yeah, I know that."

Alfred swore and made a face. "That's the most disgusting thing..."

"Then why did you do it?" Matthew demanded, interrupting his brother. "You're the guilty one. You didn't even just think about it: you actually did it. What did you want so much money for: more hamburgers? A new skyscraper?"

"I didn't do it for the money," Alfred said, his voice tensing. "I thought... I thought I was being a hero... when, in fact, I was making myself worse than Emma... Am I a bad guy now? I don't even wanna think about it... But I know one thing," and here he pointed at Vash: "you would've done the same for your sister!"

Matthew blinked. Vash furrowed his eyebrows. What did Lili have to do with anything? He looked at Matthew, as if to ask: _Do_ you _have any idea what he's talking about?_ Matthew blinked again, and then spoke, slowly piecing the puzzle together. "You trapped a guy in the Machine... so that the money and stuff was gone... to prevent Emma's plan from ever happening... so you could save me?"

"I know what it's like to be forgotten," Alfred answered, "and I would never, ever, ever let that happen to my brother, no matter what."

Perhaps he was right in saying Vash would've done the same for his sister. Nevertheless, a preventative strike like that was a stupid thing to do. And why would Alfred know... "Matthew," he asked softly, though probably loud enough that Alfred could hear it, "how would _Alfred_ know what it's like to be forgotten? Isn't he one of the least forgotten people in the entire school?"

But Matthew shook his head. "Yeah, well... he does that on purpose which is kind of the point... You know how you didn't want to make friends until recently? Alfred has a similar thing... He had this best friend when he was little..."

"Let me guess," said Vash sarcastically to Alfred, "he started following you around like a needy duckling and asking for favors constantly?"

"No," said Alfred. "He forgot me. He forgot about me, and then he died."

Vash and Matthew waited silently. They were expecting Alfred to elaborate, to tell them the details of this friendship, and how this could have happened, but they should've known he wasn't the kind of person to tell them things like that.

"His name was Davie," was all he said. "He liked forget-me-nots. Ironic, huh?" And after a painful laugh, he went back to their original conversation: "Anyway, so I was the bad guy. I found Emma's plans, got pissed off, wanted to shoot her dead, but that would cause too much trouble and we can't even have weapons in school so my gun was back at home. But I had to stop them, and the only way I could think of besides killing Emma was to put someone else in the Machine. I couldn't put Emma or one of her friends in, because if the others realized what'd happened, they would kidnap Mattie anyway and throw him in there to get their friend out. So I had to pick someone less popular. And since Gilbert wasn't really... _one of us_ anymore, y'know... I thought... Well, I thought it wouldn't matter. But it did. I chose Gilbert because not many people would miss him and he'd just lie around in there and be forgotten, but that's the whole damn reason it was wrong. _Nobody_ deserves to be forgotten, no matter who or what they are. And there I'd watched myself become the villain. And what's worse, he can _die_. I _killed_ him. If I was a real hero, I would've thrown my..."

"He's alive," said Matthew.

Alfred blinked, forgetting the end of his sentence and starting somewhere else, pointing his finger at Vash out of the blue: "And now that Mattie was all happy and confident, _you_ had to go and ruin it by letting him find out what they were gonna do to him! Now we gotta start all over, after he'd finally learned to stand up to me... Wait, Mattie, did you say he's _alive_?"

"We don't have to start anything over," Matthew replied. "Just 'cause some dumb girl made me sad doesn't mean I've lost all my confidence. And yeah, I'm kind of sad right now, but I'm also kind of happy: I gained two friends, or three, or... I don't even know how many. And yeah, Gilbert is alive. He's one of my new friends. He's a bit... unusual, but he's a good kid. We're gonna help him get out of there..."

"Thank god..." said Alfred. "But wait, don't you know... How the hell are you gonna... Oh jeez, what's _she_ doing here?"

Before he had time to guess who _she_ was, Vash felt a pull on his arm, and someone was tugging him away from his friends and Matthew's brother.

"Hi-i!"

"Hi there, Wally," said Vash. He was not amused.

"Hi!" said Wally again, but this time there was some sort of gleam in her eyes and her voice sounded surprised, even touched... She'd let go of his arm. Right. _Wally._ He had accidentally called her by the correct name, and now she was all impressed. Flanny, meanwhile, waved at him softly, probably hoping he would utter _her_ name as well.

Wally soon recovered from her quiet moment, flipped her hair back, and announced: "Alright, neutral teddycheese! Time to work on our Viking art project!" Oh, great. He'd forgotten about that.

"No Wally," he told her firmly. "I'm busy with my own project right now. We can work on that thing in the weekend."

"Well," whispered Wally, pulling him further away from his friends as her voice changed to the bossy tone of B, "I have good news for your project as well. I found out who stole the cats."

" _What_?!" How the hell did she figure that out? After all Vash and Matthew's hard work, they still knew nothing, and here B came running up with the answer!

"It was simple, really," B bragged. "All I had to do was ask all my friends: there are twenty-eight of us, so someone must have seen something, I thought. And I was right: Lucija had seen the whole thing happen. She hadn't told anyone until I asked about it, since it would've ruined her image to talk bad of a _club member_ and this might have stood in the way of her admittance..."

"Who is it?" Vash demanded.

"If I tell you, can we join the Wallflower Pact?" asked Wally. Vash let out a hard sigh. What the hell was their problem? And hadn't they told him _B_ was the manipulative one? Wally was clearly just as stubborn.

"Please?" Flanny whispered. "Can we be your friends?" And Flanny, too.

Vash shook his head. "No, Emma. I've told you numerous times that I'm not interested. That goes for all three of you."

"But why?" asked Wally. "I saved your butt from Ludwig, remember! I'm always nice to you!"

"Is it because of B?" asked Flanny.

"Is it because of Matthew?" asked Wally.

"It's obviously his pride," said B to her sisters. "This supposed 'neutral policy' he wants to maintain."

But Vash shook his head again. "No, Emma. It has nothing to do with your faults, nor with B or Matthew or my pride or my neutral policy, which, for your interest, is not the same thing as my pride. It's not _even_ because of the nasty things the three of you agreed to do to my best friend. Since two of you feel bad about having had these thoughts - assuming Wally felt as bad as Flanny did, but was too dim-witted to apologize - and the other one doesn't even remember who Matthew is, and none of you actually did those things, I could forgive you for thinking about them. The reason I don't want to be your friend is much simpler than that. You can't force friendship."

"Hein?" said Wally, which Vash knew was 'huh' in French (though it sounded more like a nasal version of Matthew's 'eh').

"You can't force friendship," Vash repeated. "That's the reason. It happens, or it doesn't. I never wanted to be friends with Matthew, but something clicked between us, and suddenly I had a friend, and I'm glad for that. If we ever get to know each other better, and it turns out we get along, I could give you a chance, but you can't expect me to be friends with you _just like that_. The more you try to push friendship in my face, the less likely that it will actually happen. It doesn't make a difference how many favors you do for me. Friendship doesn't work like a vending machine: it's not a trade, nor is it 'fair'. So I cannot promise to be your friend, nor can I say that a friendship between us will never happen. I'm sorry to disappoint you."

"But..." Wally was clearly disappointed. "What about the cats? We found out who took the cats!"

"It doesn't matter who took the cats," said Vash. "If necessary, I can figure it out on my own. Stop trying to force a friendship out of me that doesn't exist."


	27. Who

_Who did take the cats, though?_ Vash wondered. He still had no explanation as to why someone would steal seven stray cats and put them in a vending machine. What was even the value of a stray cat?

"Dude!" Alfred ran up to Vash, followed by a worried-looking Matthew. "What did she want from you?"

Vash shrugged. "Nothing all too interesting."

They went back to the machine and stood there for a while. Then Vash muttered:

"So where do we go from here?"

He was certain he heard Matthew whisper in reply: "So who shall we kill, eh?" That was an unusual thing to come from Matthew's mouth...

"Gottverdammt, won't you two ever stop hogging the Machine?!" Ludwig stormed at them, knocked Matthew over (probably by accident, since he didn't seem to see he was there) and opened the top door. "I swear, just let me trade in peace!"

He didn't look very peaceful though. With a lot more force than was needed, he thrust a piece of jewelry into the Machine, and then a small statue, and then a book - wait, was that the Bible?! He was glad Lili wasn't there to witness that... What was Ludwig's problem? He was throwing in object after object without even checking what he'd got in return, and when he finally opened the bottom door, he only took all the things and threw them back into the Machine. It almost looked like _he_ was a machine.

"Throw in the rooster," whispered Matthew. Ludwig didn't hear him, and Vash looked at him skeptically.

"Matthew, we already talked about this," he whispered to his friend. "We don't need to give him the rooster..." Alfred was listening to their conversation, but Ludwig still didn't hear them: he was concentrated entirely on trading.

"Yeah, we do," said Matthew. "That's how we can get the rest of the cats back, remember?"

Right. The cats. The case that Emma had solved, just by asking around, when Vash and Matthew had done all kinds of research and hadn't found the culprit. But Matthew was right: they might as well finish what they had started and let Herakles have his cats.

"Ludwig," Vash said, speaking very clearly to try to catch his attention. "Listen to me. Put the rooster in the Machine."

"What?!" Ludwig spun around. "What did you say?"

"Put the rooster inside the Machine," Vash repeated.

Ludwig glared at Vash. "Never. He's never going back there. He is safe with me."

"Tell him _Gilbert_ wants him to," said Matthew.

"Gilbert wants you to," said Vash.

"G-Gilbert?" The hostility disappeared from Ludwig's face: instead, he looked deeply shocked. He opened his bag and took out the rooster, who was sleeping. He stroked its feathers, and then, very, very gently, he put the battered up rooster inside the Exchange Machine. It ticked, rumbled, and out came four stray cats.

"Are all the cats... free now?" asked Ludwig.

"Yes," said Vash.

"Then," said Ludwig, "my mistake has been undone."

"Your mistake?" asked Vash. "What exactly do you mean by..." Once again, Ludwig wasn't listening: he'd spotted a note that had come out of the Machine along with the cats, written with the same old marker in that shaky handwriting:

 _Danke, Bruder! The Awesome Me approves!_

Ludwig was trembling so much that he could have easily reproduced his brother's handwriting at that moment. It was strange to see Ludwig look so helpless, but then again every person had moments of helplessness: as Vash had discovered, even he himself was not always in control of the situation...

"We're getting him out of there," said Matthew, looking straight into Ludwig's face, and something in his face made it seem like he had heard him, but Vash repeated the sentence just in case.

Ludwig didn't move. Alfred hadn't spoken a word during their conversation until now and had moved closer to the wall, holding a comic book that he was pretending to read, but now Vash heard him swear. He violently thrust the comic onto the floor, and went up to Ludwig.

"Dude, I... I swear to god, I _will_ make sure your brother is freed, and alive! It's the least I can do after... well, stuff..."

Ludwig nodded faintly, threw some more large objects into the Machine, muttered, "Thank you," and left.

"So who shall we kill, eh?" Matthew asked again.

"Whaddaya mean, _kill_?" asked Alfred.

"Not literally," said Matthew. "I meant, like, _sacrifice_... We've gotta put someone in the Machine to get Gilbert out. It's the only way."

"Dude, no way," said Alfred. "We're not putting some random person in the Machine. That's what _I_ did. It doesn't matter how many friends they have, or if they're an asshole, or if they've done sucky stuff. When I say no one deserves to be forgotten, I mean _no one_. Not even communists. Not even Emma who plotted to make my brother disappear."

Vash frowned. Alfred was definitely right, but there didn't seem to be any other way...

"Then what do you suggest?" he asked, not expecting a useful answer, since Matthew's brother often seemed to behave like an idiot.

"Well, I'm the hero, right?" Alfred answered. "If I were a real hero, I'd sacrifice myself! Besides, I'm the one who got Gilbert in there, so I've gotta be the one to fix it. I should've done that to begin with instead of telling an innocent person, 'Hey, I bet you're not awesome enough to dare climb into that top door'. It's so obvious! Any moviemaker would've used this as their ending..."

"I won't let you," said Matthew. "Didn't you just tell us that nobody deserves to be forgotten, no matter who they are or what they've done? That includes you, you know..."

"Of course it includes me," said Alfred, wearing a grin that was probably fake. "I don't deserve to be forgotten. But do you really think that _anyone_ could possibly forget about me if I disappear? Everyone would remember me, and you know why? When Davie died, I vowed to myself that I would _never_ , _ever_ , _ever_ , be forgotten again. I made sure that my voice, my country, my power, my _everything_ , would be remembered forever! Just like Rome: no one forgot about Rome..."

"Alfred..." Matthew whispered in shock.

"Don't you get it?" asked Alfred. "I can afford to disappear. You can lock me up in the tight space of a vending machine with no one knowing I'm there except you guys, and still every single person at our school, teacher or student, would remember my name. I'm gonna do it, and you can't stop me." He pushed Matthew to the side and opened the Exchange Machine's top door. Vash watched in disbelief, uncertain whether or not he should stop him.

"Alfred, don't!" said Matthew, grabbing onto his brother's shirt. "Wait!"

When his brother showed no sign of stopping, Matthew added: "What about your country?"

"You better take good care of it, Mattie!"

"But... w-what about _me_?"

"Vash'll look out for you, don't worry," said Alfred, winking at Vash, who still had trouble fully comprehending what was happening. "Heck, he already does."

 _Should I hold him back?_ Vash asked himself. But what if this _was_ the best solution? What if Alfred was right and this solution would cause less suffering than anything else?

When Alfred climbed up into the opening, however, and Matthew's tugging at him was clearly not enough to keep him from jumping inside, Vash knew he wasn't neutral enough to just stand there and watch them. He grabbed hold of Alfred and pushed him harshly in the other direction, onto the floor.

"You idiot!" he yelled. "We need to _think_ before we act!"

"Think of what?" Alfred asked skeptically. "What other solution is there?"

"Well..." Vash had to think quickly before Alfred would climb into that opening again... What had the same worth as a living person? Large amounts of money? Other living things? Nothing aside from other people? And was there really no one whose riddance wouldn't do any harm?

His eyes skimmed the hallway. Could anything here be of use? The portraits? The paintings? The carpet? The teachers chasing each other? Emma's club trotting by, probably heading towards a meeting? No, none of that... Unless...

" _Emma!_ " he shouted. "Get over here right this instant!"

She stopped, turned around, and slowly walked towards him. He was surprised that she had actually listened to him.

"Excuse me?" said B, raising her eyebrows at him as if she was the headmistress of the school who must be obeyed at all costs.

"I wasn't talking to _you_ ," said Vash. "Now, Flanny and Wally, I have an offer for you. How would you like to be freed from your sister's command?"

Flanny blinked. Wally said "hein".

"I am serious," said Vash. "How would you like to split?"


	28. Unfair Trade

Emma leaned forward in front of the Machine, carefully poking her head inside.

"Can you see anything?" asked Alfred. Good question: if she could reach inside, they could pull Gilbert out and wouldn't need to sacrifice anybody.

But Emma answered "no". They could've known, of course, that the Exchange Machine wouldn't work that way.

"Figures," said Matthew. "If my dad made it, it's gotta be hard to fix..."

"Is it working?" asked Vash, after they had spent several minutes watching Emma stand in the same position while making groaning noises. Nothing appeared to be happening.

"No!" yelled Wally, clearly frustrated.

"I don't know!" said Flanny, sounding confused.

"Have you both gone mad?!" B shouted.

"What the heck?" said Alfred. "What's she even trying to do?"

"It's a brilliant plan," said Matthew, grinning, "though I feel bad for B..." His grin faded slightly at his last comment.

"Who's B?" asked Alfred. "Okay, you know what? I'm getting kind of impatient - yeah, you know me - so how 'bout I leave y'all at it, and if whatever you're doing fails, just call the hero and I'll show you some sacrifice, 'kay? I'll be in the lunchroom with the normal vending machines: you know, the ones that have drinks and snacks and no students inside of them? So you know where to find me! See ya!" He winked at them and headed off.

Matthew shook his head and sighed. "Silly brother, eh? Did he really think we'd let him get away with sacrificing himself?"

They walked over to Emma, who was still struggling. B turned away from the Machine, but Flanny grabbed hold of its opening so she couldn't escape.

"So how do we trigger you to split up?" Vash asked.

"I don't know!" said Flanny and Wally at the same time.

"Could it be in one of your items? That kind of stuff happens sometimes..."

"The hairband!" Wally shouted, but Flanny shook her head. Ignoring her shyer sister, Wally pulled off her hairband and held it into the opening. B rolled her eyes at this idea. Flanny wrenched the hairband out of the machine and away from her sister.

"No, Wally," she said. "We've had a hairband or bow on our head since we were a child, so that can't be B. Don't go throwing away our old things just to test if it'll change anything. Besides, B wasn't showing any resistance to that, so I don't think she's in an item. She's here with us, in our body."

B turned away from the machine with some difficulty, and cleared her throat.

"Sisters, this is all nonsense," she said in a clear voice. "Stop trying to defy me. You'll only end up hurting yourselves. I was created to stop you, and the other people around us, from hurting each other. If people see you as mediocre or fail to remember what defines your country, that isn't _my_ fault. Everybody knows I have less of an identity than either of you, so you cannot possibly believe I stole your identity. And just because I'm bossy and manipulative doesn't mean I deserve to disappear, or that you're better off without me. I am needed. I have a _job_. And I have feelings, though perhaps less of them than other people do. You say you hate me? Well, I don't hate you. Though our friendship may remain mostly formal and at the surface, I care about each and every one of my club members, and I will look out for them, no matter what. That includes both of you. Please think about it before you toss me into a vending machine. I am your protector, and if you keep me, I will always be there for you. If you lose me, the world may fall into chaos."

Even though B appeared to mean what she said (either she was a good actress or she actually believed what she was saying), Vash was not at all convinced by her speech. Therefore it surprised him to see that both Wally and Matthew looked shocked and even touched. Flanny, who Vash would have expected to be the weakest of the three and the most likely to give in to B's trap (if it was a trap), was still hesitating.

"The world..." she muttered, "...will be okay. Because if you disappear, it is not the end of our club. We can take over... try to handle it on our own..."

Vash expected B to reply to this with some snarky comment about Flanny's lack of discipline, but instead, she remained silent, listening.

"Or," Flanny added, "if we do not have the required skills to lead the club, we could let Ludwig be the chairman. He always gets people to be quiet and listen..."

She stopped and blinked in surprise.

"You... you're _listening_ to me!"

"Yes, I am," said Vash.

"No, not you!" Flanny exclaimed. " _B_ is listening to me!" And she looked so overjoyed that Vash's first instinct was to feel happy for her, but that would just be stupid, so he held himself in and concentrated on what was important: Gilbert's release.

Flanny and Wally had stopped trying, thanks to B's brainwashing, and Vash was extremely worried that they would let her escape. He exchanged glances with Matthew, but his friend only shook his head softly.

"No one deserves to be forgotten, Vash," he muttered. "No one... No matter who or what they are... And B just proved that she is _someone_ : not just an _idea_ , but a somebody with thoughts and feelings and we can't make the same mistake Alfred did..."

But Vash was determined to continue their plan. "Think realistically, Matthew. _Someone_ needs to be sacrificed, and B has been tormenting Flanny and Wally for years. The three of them would be much happier if they split. And do you really want somebody like Alfred to sacrifice himself because we couldn't find a better alternative?"

He turned to Flanny and Wally, and was willing to bet they were just as easily manipulated as young Jerome. Why not try a similar trick?

"Try to think rebellious thoughts," he told them. "Think of a revolution, of independence. You don't need her. You don't need each other. You can stand alone, like I do." Saying this felt off, since Matthew was right there beside him. He didn't _really_ stand alone...

But his speech was convincing enough for Wally. She'd stopped hesitating and was chanting: "Revolution! Revolution!"

Flanny laughed and joined in, although she didn't seem completely sure of herself: "Independence? Let's focus on it!"

They went from laughing and singing to serious business. They tugged at their body. They tried to pull themselves apart by walking in opposite directions. They sat on the floor in what was meant to be a yoga position, concentrating as hard as they could on their own individualities (or perhaps on images of revolution, or on how annoying B was: it wasn't as if Vash could read what they were thinking). They got back up and made various restless movements, occasionally uttering things: "Ack!" "Aie!" "No!" "Out, out, out!" "But we're a family!" "Exit... exit..." "Flanny, don't try to throw _me_ out!" "This is insane!" "I'm trying..." "Try harder!" "We need each other!" "I don't know what to do..."

It wasn't working.

They could try all they wanted, but it was becoming clear that none of this was helping. Vash had given up on giving them advice. He knew nothing about this, and perhaps there was no way to forcefully trigger a split. Funny enough, Matthew looked relieved at the lack of progress. He really did mean it when he said no one deserved this.

Flanny finally pulled herself further away from the Machine and faced Vash.  
"I'm sorry," she said to him, "but we are not able to separate, and I... I'm not sure whether I want to anymore..." She swallowed and held her head up high. "Vash, I mean: Vash and Matthew, I - Wally and I both - appreciate your kind offer, but I think we will try to work out our problems by ourself before trying anything this reckless again. Because, as you told us so boldly, we are independent."

And when Emma walked away to rejoin her friends, the three sisters seemed somehow more in harmony with each other: Flanny looked less shy, Wally less silly, and B, if possible, looked at least a tiny bit less bossy.

" _Get away from here for once! I need to trade... alone!_ "

Emma had only just left when Ludwig returned with a dismal expression on his face.

"What did I tell you, Vash?" he asked when there was no reaction. "GET. OUT. I know what I did wrong. I know what I have to do."

Vash didn't understand, but Matthew whispered: " _He wants to sacrifice himself..._ "

"You can't do that, Ludwig," said Vash. "We were figuring out another way. We tried to split Emma into three people..."

Ludwig looked over at Emma, who was calmly walking away. "Clearly, you were not successful."

"Then we'll find another way," said Vash, but if he was honest with himself, he doubted there was any other solution.

"There must be a way," said Matthew. "A way where no one will disappear forever!"

"I don't know how the hell you even know what's going on," Ludwig replied to Vash, obviously not hearing Matthew's comment, "but there is no other way. I have tried everything! _Everything!_ You don't even want to know all the thousands of euros I've wasted, boxes of books and jewelry I've thrown away, and I even... I thought I'd finally outsmarted the Machine: a living thing, I thought, could be traded for a living thing, and surely a box of _seven_ living things would get me the one living person in return... And so I stole the cats. But I was wrong: I got nothing. Nothing but that rooster and some of my old money. That is when I gave up completely. I thought it was pointless, especially since I didn't even know until now whether he was still alive. But now I finally realize what I've done wrong and I'm going to fix it." He took a step towards the Machine.

"W-wait!" said Matthew, but he didn't hear his voice.

"Be sensible!" said Vash. "What about your country?"

"Without me standing in his way," Ludwig replied, "Gilbert will finally be bound to the Earth again."

Vash protested repeatedly, but Ludwig wouldn't listen. He was already on the verge of stepping inside, and Vash grabbed onto him to hold him back, but Matthew mumbled:

"You know, we don't actually need to do that..."

What the hell did he mean by that? Vash turned around. Surely if even the sacrifice of bossy B went too far for him, Matthew wouldn't approve of sacrificing one of the strongest students in the school?

"We don't need to hold him back," Matthew repeated. "If he goes inside, Gilbert will come out. Then whoever we decide to sacrifice can go inside and Ludwig will be freed too. And if Alfred is ever so stupid to go in there, I will personally..."

"Matthew..." All this 'freeing' each other seemed sort of silly to Vash, since he honestly didn't care much what would happen to people besides himself and his friends, but Matthew's words had sparked an idea.

"We can take turns," he told Matthew, while he kept tugging at Ludwig to stop and listen to him. "Being stuck in the Exchange Machine wouldn't be a problem for us if it was only for a day. So we can take turns spending a day inside the Machine, and that way, nobody will be confined."

"Like how Castor and Pollux share immortality..." muttered Herakles, who they hadn't even noticed was sitting against the wall nearby.

"I..." Ludwig seemed bewildered by this plan, but he didn't protest and had stopped trying to climb into the Machine. He watched as they came closer to it. If it had been a living animal, they could've felt its breathing.

"I'll go first," said Matthew, opening the top door. For a moment, he hesitated.

"Don't forget about me, okay?" he whispered, turning around towards Vash.

He nodded stiffly. How could he possibly forget about his best friend, who he'd had so many great conversations with? Their friendship had changed several of his opinions, if only slightly: that alone was a huge accomplishment. He knew he would remember the one classmate whose company didn't bother him. Something had clicked between them and he wasn't about to forget that.

"We should inform Gilbert of our plans," he muttered, and wrote a note:

 _Dear Gilbert,_

 _We're getting you out of there!_

 _Your friends_

Matthew added:

 _PS. Hold on to your rooster or you might lose him._

 _Gilbert and the Exchange Machine, you are both AWESOME!_

They put the note into the top door, and waited, but although the Machine was ticking, nothing came out. Vash felt his face grow tense. His heart was thumping.

Suddenly, Matthew thrust his arms around the Machine.

"Take care of me, okay?"

Vash didn't understand why on Earth he was doing this, but he repeated Matthew's gesture. They were both hugging the Exchange Machine now, and its ticking seemed to grow louder and more irregular.

"Time to go then," Matthew whispered to Vash. "So long, friend..." And Vash was ready to help him up, ready to say goodbye for this very short while...

But before Matthew could set one foot into the top door, the Machine started rumbling, and with a crack, the bottom door opened and something large fell out. Or better said, it was not something at all. It was _someone_...

He looked like a mess. His clothes were covered in stains and grime, and his white hair was dull and greasy. His skinny, pale body was shaking and clutching the rooster in his arms. When he looked up at Vash and Matthew, his eyes were all red, and Vash couldn't tell whether it was from exhaustion or whether it was his natural eye color: probably both. But when he saw their two faces looking down at him, an enormous grin formed on his face, and Herakles, who had fallen asleep next to the Machine, murmured:

"The key to freedom is... friendship."


	29. Out of Balance

How could this have happened? Didn't the Exchange Machine only accept fair trades? Garbage for garbage? A person for a person? But they had just inserted _nothing_ , and a person had come out!

Perhaps it could've been the hug's doing, or the friendly note, but surely none of these were worth as much as a human being? It didn't make sense at all, even with Herakles mumbling that friendship was the key.

"Gilbert?" Matthew whispered in disbelief.

"Hey," said Gilbert in a raspy voice, "I thought I told you to refer to me as the Awesome Me!"

He was still lying on the floor, shaking, holding the rooster. Vash frowned again at how sickly he looked, how dirty his clothes were, how awful he smelled, but at least that big grin didn't seem to disappear from his face. Vash offered him a hand and with some difficulty, Gilbert stood up, leaning on his friends for support.

"Bruder..." Ludwig whispered in shock.

"Hey, West! You're here too!" Gilbert only just noticed his brother's presence.

"Careful, Gilbert," said Vash, but he'd already let go of their support and flung himself into Ludwig's arms. Ludwig clenched his brother tightly against him.

"I missed you..."

Gilbert winced at how tightly his brother was holding him, but when Ludwig loosened his grip, he let out a cackle of laughter, and with mischief in his eyes, he ruffled up his brother's slicked back hair, much to Ludwig's horror.

"I can't believe it," he spoke. "You've only been back for one minute and you're _already_ annoying the living crap out of me!"

They all shook their heads and laughed at Gilbert's ridiculousness. At that moment, they heard shouting as Arthur Kirkland, the English teacher, walked briskly in their direction.

"It worked! My magic spell worked!"

"You mean _our_ magic spell," said Vladimir. "It wouldn't have worked if it hadn't been for me and Lukas." He followed him to the Exchange Machine, along with Mr. Bondevik, Milen, and Elisaveta, who suddenly stopped and stared.

"It... what?" Her eyes grew wider. With a loud crash, her frying pan fell to the floor, and she raced towards Gilbert Beilschmidt.

" _Gilbert!_ You... you're alive! I did it... I... brought you back from the dead!"

With a confused laugh, Gilbert shook his head. "You're a crazy woman! These two companions brought me back, not you! And I wasn't dead just yet: don't you underestimate the Awesome Me!"

" _You_ did it?" Elisaveta looked at Vash in surprise.

"I... I think so," said Vash.

"Well, in that case: thank you so much... And all this time, I thought you were on that _thing_ 's side..."

 _I am on that thing's side_ , Vash thought to himself. _But I'm also supportive of Gilbert._ There was no reason why the two would contradict one another.

"He _needs_ to be washed, though," Elisaveta added, "before _Roderich_ sees him so disgusting and passes out in shock."

So Vash and Matthew brought him to the P.E. changing rooms, while Ludwig left to get him a change of clothes. Vash was worried they would have to help him in the shower, since he still had some trouble walking, but he was convinced that he could do it himself. They waited nearby, keeping their ears open in case their help was needed after all, and they smiled at each other when they heard him squeal in delight, probably at the fresh feeling of the water on his skin. While he sang off-key to himself with the pouring shower as his only audible background instrument, Vash and Matthew waited with a towel, and Ludwig soon appeared with some clean clothes.

Getting those clothes onto Gilbert turned out to be a challenge. When he was finally finished with his shower and had dried himself off, he suddenly sprinted out the door and stormed down the school hallways, yelling: "Behold! I am free! Free! The Awesome Me has returned!"

"You idiot!" yelled Elisaveta. "Put on some clothes!" And she reached for her frying pan: only now did she realize it was missing, so she ran back to where she had dropped it. Meanwhile, Ludwig helped them catch Gilbert and they finally got him dressed.

"What is his problem?" asked Vash. "Does he think he can disobey the dress code and run around in his birthday suit?"

"Clearly, he's enjoying his newly found freedom," laughed Matthew. "At least it means he can walk okay now. He must be recovering quickly."

This recovery continued for the rest of the evening. They gave him a nice warm meal, listened to his long speeches about how awesome he was, and watched him reunite with some of his old friends and enemies. Several teachers were thrilled to see that their missing student had returned (though others, less thrilled about his return, shared their memories of him misbehaving in class, and still others had no recollection of a Gilbert Beilschmidt ever existing), and when it was time to go to sleep, the gym teacher announced that he could sleep in Vash's dorm, because after all, Vash had found him, and he was the only one without a dorm partner. Matthew glared at him after this suggestion, but in the end, he was happy letting Gilbert sleep in his bed. Vash offered to sleep on the carpet so Matthew could have a bed, but Matthew claimed sleeping on the carpet was a good way to meditate, and Vash promised that the next night, they would switch places.

On Saturday, they took Gilbert outside. He was so happy that he couldn't stop laughing. He rolled in the flowerbeds, chased the ponies, made fake mustaches out of the grass, and all the time, he was cackling with laughter. He had a funny sort of hissing laugh that never seemed to end. While his rooster frolicked around in the meadow eating other students' picnics, Gilbert talked to the sun. Perhaps he should have found a shadier spot to sit and talk: by the time they went inside, Gilbert was sunburnt.

Most of Sunday, however, was devoted to his Viking art project with Emma. Vash figured they might as well get it over with as soon as possible, so that he wouldn't be bothered by her company for much longer. The funny thing was that her company no longer bothered him much now that she wasn't so keen on becoming his friend. They worked together pretty well. B divided the tasks fairly between the four of them, and they worked fully concentrated in peace and quiet. Wally, of course, broke the silence a couple times, seeing as she was unable to sit still and hold her tongue for that long, but B would put her finger to her lips and Wally would stop.

"Don't worry that you hurt our feelings," Wally told him at one point. "We're not insulted that easily. We make fun of each other all the time, and even of ourselves..."

"Hush, sister," said B.

"I'm trying to find someone good to ship Flanny with," she said a while later, "so that she won't crush on you anymore." Flanny shook her head at the absurdity of this, and Wally continued: "As for me, I'm going for Lovino."

"I don't think he likes girls, though," Flanny whispered.

"Maybe he's bi!" said Wally.

"Will you be quiet?" said B.

And they were silent again for quite a while, working together in harmony, until Wally said softly:

"Ludwig stole the cats, by the way... I thought you ought to know. You worked so hard on that case: it would be a shame if you never found the answer."

"Thank you," said Vash, "but I had already figured that out by myself." Not entirely by himself, since Ludwig had basically confessed it to him, but she didn't need to know that.

In the end, they were fairly happy with their result. They'd made a nice woodcarving representing a Viking ship, and Emma's company hadn't been nearly as unpleasant as Vash had imagined it.

"So what did you two do while I was gone?" he asked Matthew and Gilbert when he came back to his dorm.

"I worked on my art project," said Matthew.

"Did you..." Vash was going to ask whether Matthew had to do it all by himself since he wasn't assigned a partner, but then he saw Matthew and Gilbert grinning at each other.

"Found myself a partner," Matthew laughed, "and guess what we made?"

He stepped to the side to reveal a large piece of wood into which a basic shape was roughly cut. When Vash took a closer look, he could see that it was the Exchange Machine wearing a Viking helmet. A fainter, finer carving showed the details in texture of the helmet and the Machine, and the gentle, organic figures of flowers growing out of the Machine's drawers, contrasting with its harsh and simple body. They were forget-me-nots.

"It's awesome, no?" said Gilbert proudly. "You can't deny it. And all because of me! And both of us, of course, but also me! We three are a great team, huh? You and Mattie and of course the Awesome Me! We fit together just fine!"

Was that true? They did fit together, in a certain way. But after the course of a week, something seemed _not_ to fit quite as well as they had imagined, as if the balance in the Wallflower Pact had been disrupted. The three of them still got along great, however, so Vash had assumed this 'disruption' would only be temporary and they'd get used to each other in no time, but this proved harder than it seemed. For how were Vash and Matthew supposed to continue having the philosophical conversations they used to have? Whenever they talked to each other, Gilbert would interrupt them, and he would go on and on speaking nonsense, and they would grow quiet. And yet they enjoyed his company and wanted him to stay; this much they knew. Their bonds of friendship were not broken, not even cracked. But how to bring back the harmony they used to have? Vash was almost tempted to stuff an onion into Gilbert's mouth so he would talk less, or even put him back in the Machine, but surely that wouldn't be a real solution. Gilbert and Matthew had fun together, and so did Gilbert and Vash, despite his annoying habits. The real problem was when Vash and Matthew tried to talk to each other, without Gilbert's interruptions... They needed some distraction for him. Perhaps three was not a crowd in their case; perhaps they were in fact _lacking_ of something. An extra member could do the trick of bringing back the harmony. But then again, there was nobody close enough to them to join, and he didn't feel like making more new friends.

"Should we ask Alfred to hang out with us during break?" Vash regretted this the moment he said it. Alfred was one of the most annoying people he knew, and he'd only mentioned it because he thought it would make Matthew happy.

But Matthew laughed and shook his head. "No way, dude. He would drive me crazy. And besides, do you think Gilbert would wanna be stuck with the guy who confined him? And how awkward would that be for Alfred?"

Vash sighed in relief and nodded.

"A _part-time_ member, perhaps," he said. "Someone could hang out with us part-time. That way, they won't bother us too much, but they will provide the necessary distraction for Gilbert, and for us too, when we become the third wheel at times. Four is easier to divide than three, you know."

Matthew shook his head, as if Vash had said something wrong, but then he mumbled: "I'd ask Flanny if you didn't hate her..."

"I don't _hate_ Flanny or Wally or even B anymore, I just..." Vash paused for a moment, "don't like their company too _frequently_... don't like when they _force_ themselves on me..." But now that they had stopped doing just that, their company had already become a lot less unpleasant... And the point of _part-time_ was that they _wouldn't_ be in their company too frequently... Maybe it was worth a try.

* * *

"Emma, remember last week when you wanted to join the Wallflower Pact? We all know it wouldn't work out if the three of you hung out with us _all the time_ , but I've thought about it and I wonder whether it might work out if you come join us in recess every now and then. I'm still not sure whether you could make friends with _me_ , but I think Matthew and Gilbert would enjoy your company, if you're still in for it."

"Definitely not," said Emma. Vash was comfortable with this rejection and completely understood, and he started to walk away, when he realized only B had answered him.

"Sure," said Wally and Flanny at the same time.

B shook her head and laughed in annoyance. "I hate you guys."


	30. Count the Shadows

It was an ordinary September school day. The sun shone into the hallway through the arched windows, and the garden outside was still filled with students' garbage, no matter how many times they had promised B not to leave their trash there. Some students were eating in the cafeteria; others talked about pasta or anime. The English teacher was chasing the French teacher this time instead of the other way around, and claimed that he desperately needed 'toe of frog' for a potion, which the French teacher appeared to find rather alarming. Roderich and Elisaveta were still dating, but they had been arguing more often (which Vash supposed was a healthy thing in their case), and Ivan had formed an alliance with Herakles and Kiku to play with the cats together. Alfred had started to hang out with Lovino during break to see if they could make friends, and it appeared that it could easily go either way: on the one hand, they found each other unbearably annoying, but on the other hand, Lovino's desire for compliments seemed to match Alfred's need to express positivity, so no one knew what would happen there. The gym teacher was helping the art teacher put all the Viking art projects on display next to the wall with all the portraits on it, and to their amazement, they found that they had ended up with one project too many compared to the amount of working pairs: who did this mystery art piece belong to?

The Wallflower Pact, meanwhile, had found their balance. Vash and Matthew had gotten used to Gilbert's talkativeness and although it still annoyed the hell out of them, it was at the same time a great source of entertainment when they were bored or in want of a conversation topic. All three of them shared an interest in nature and invisible things, and although he was very different from the two of them, Gilbert had found his place in their friends' group and they valued his presence. As for Vash and Matthew's philosophical conversations, those could continue in peace now that certain things were settled. Gilbert's interruptions had grown less frequent since he'd taken to writing on the walls as a hobby again, and when he did interrupt them, they let him join the conversation. Also, Emma occasionally sat with them during break, which brought more variation into their conversation patterns. Whenever Emma was there, everyone had a chance to talk. Perhaps one time Flanny and Matthew would whisper together and Wally and Gilbert would tease each other, and Vash could finally have some time on his own, perhaps sacrificing a few minutes to give B some financial advice, or, more likely, he would go visit the middle school grounds to see his sister and her friends. And then the next time, Wally and Matthew would have a contest in telling jokes about themselves, while Vash shared recipes with Flanny and Gilbert talked to himself. And the time after that, Flanny and Gilbert would talk about history, Matthew would talk endlessly to the Exchange Machine, who never responded, but was a great listener, and Vash would enjoy arguing with Wally about which country had the best chocolate and which had the best cheese. Today, however, Wally and Flanny were both keeping Gilbert entertained, while Vash and Matthew discussed one small detail about the previous events that still confused them.

"I wonder why the Machine gave us Gilbert for free," Vash said, "or _almost_ for free, to be more precise... I don't suppose Arthur Kirkland was correct that it was the spell's doing: after all, I don't believe in magic..."

"Even if you believe in magic, like I do," said Matthew, "it couldn't have been the spell. The spell was to bring someone back from the dead, and Gilbert wasn't dead."

Vash nodded in agreement, and they were silent for a moment.

"It _did_ have a strange way of estimating values at times..." Vash muttered. "There was the time it gave Ivan all that money for his 'feeding time', and it also overpaid for my marker..."

Matthew nodded and remained silent as Vash put his thoughts together.

"I have a theory," Vash said finally. "The Machine was supposed to judge values all by itself, wasn't it? But I don't think it did. I think that once Gilbert entered the Machine, his mind began to take over its rankings: food and drink were worth extra, because those kept him alive, and the marker too, because it gave him a _voice_... That explains why even seven living things couldn't get him out of the Machine: in Gilbert's mindset, nothing could possibly be worth as much as his awesome self. But then we gave him something that meant a lot to him: our friendship, in the form of the note, and the hug, and the recognition he always wanted. We even told him we thought he was awesome. Friendship, as Herakles said, was the key to freedom, because it was the only thing that Gilbert could value just as highly as himself, or at least close enough to make the trade possible."

"That's a really interesting idea," said Matthew softly.

"Do you agree that it is the most plausible possibility?" Vash asked his friend.

"I'm not sure," said Matthew. "It's a good theory, but I have my own idea of what happened..." He paused, humming softly, and then continued with a smile. "I think it was the _Machine_ who valued our friendship so high, Vash. No one ever recognized him as a _someone_ before we did, and... I think he really wanted a hug."

"That doesn't explain its earlier overpays, though," said Vash. "They were clearly linked to what _Gilbert_ needed, not the Machine."

"Every theory has its flaws," said Matthew, "but yours doesn't explain the hug. I don't think Gilbert could feel the hug though the thick walls of the Machine..."

Vash shrugged. Perhaps both theories were equally plausible.

At that moment, Feliks and Toris walked by, and Feliks looked appalled to see his friend Emma sitting with them during break yet again.

"What's the deal here?!" he exclaimed. "Why do you sit with Vash so often all of a sudden? Are you like a couple or something?"

At this question, Gilbert jumped forward and shouted defensively:

"Excuse me! There's four of us here, you know!"

"Six," said Vash and Emma at the same time.

"Seven," said Matthew, gazing dreamily towards the Machine, and Vash could have sworn he heard it ticking in approval, but he knew that could only be his imagination...


End file.
